The Rough Draft season 2
by Marc Vun Kannon
Summary: Shaw is gone but the Ring remains, plotting and planning while Chuck and Sarah deal with the consequences of their actions, with a lot of help from their friends.
1. Homecoming

**A/N** I took a little break, working on other stories for other publications. Not to mention that I'm pretty terrified now. This season of the story will be a recomposition of the good parts of the Back 6, S4, and S5, with all the dross left out. I've already used some parts of the Back 6 in the previous season, but I'll be creating almost a whole new story as I go. I hate doing that. I have some idea of where the story will end up, but no firm ideas of how it will get there.

* * *

" _It's too late for that."_

" _Unfortunately."_

" _Speaking of therapy."_

" _Likewise."_

* * *

Storm clouds were gathering.

General Diane Beckman could feel them, even though the view from her office window showed a bright sunny day outside. Beckman trusted her gut over any window, especially that one. Storm clouds were always gathering somewhere, and her gut had been warning her for days, ever since she'd gotten that phone call from the LA branch office. She'd been cursing the name of Daniel Shaw ever since, not only for what he was doing, but also for taking her best analyst away from her when she needed to figure out what he'd _been_ doing.

Nor was she the only one, not for cursing Shaw but for needing Chuck. His sister had found out about his double life at last, as he was literally heading out the door to go after Sarah. Casey had jumped on that grenade out of necessity, and so she'd been deprived of all three of her best operatives, since Ellie was brilliant woman, a born interrogator, and fiercely protective of her brother. Not only did Ellie want Chuck under her microscope, and Sarah with him because those two went everywhere together, but Casey could certainly stand to be relieved of that duty for a while. Years, probably.

She'd told Chuck and Sarah just yesterday to get back ASAP, for Casey's sake if nothing else. They'd said they needed a little more time in Paris before returning, not for themselves but for Sam Jones, a new agent sadly abused by Daniel Shaw due to her unfortunate resemblance to his dead wife. Less than a day later they were in the air. Any longer and she'd have deployed Casey to hunt them down in Europe.

Her phone buzzed. "General, your guests have arrived."

Her guests. Not 'her team', 'her best team', or even 'her special guests'. One benefit of the events of the past few days was that, due to Shaw's psychotic and unprofessional conduct, the documentation was…inexact. Just as Shaw had kept Jones' flight to Paris (legitimate to the best of Jones' knowledge) off the books, Beckman had kept Shaw's presence on Sarah's trip to Paris off the same books. The first stage of Chuck's pursuit was accomplished through Air Force auspices, with nothing in NSA or CIA records to show he'd ever left Burbank, or had anything to do with yet another flight to Paris out of DC.

In short, the best that anybody outside the principal actors could tell was that somebody had gone to Paris and somebody had just come back. She pressed the button. "Send them in."

Agents Bartowski and Walker entered the room. "Wow, what a view," said Chuck, staring at her window.

"Thank you," said the General, watching how they moved together. Good for them that they could, sad for them that they needed to. She allowed herself to get distracted by trivia. "It's a monitor, actually, security considerations preclude having such a vulnerability in my office. It's got feeds coming from multiple sources, so it's like I have different offices all over the building." She waved at her guest chairs. "Sit down, please."

They sat, close enough that they could each touch fingers with the other, which they did often. Beckman wondered if they were even aware they were doing it, reminded of Jones' wry observation. 'Couples' therapy for a shooting', indeed. "How was Notre Dame?"

They'd told her they were going, of course. They had been told to return to America as soon as possible, but for Jones the visit had been necessary, and necessary trumped possible. "About what we expected it would be," said Chuck.

"Beautiful, calm," said Sarah. "Soothing."

Chuck nodded. "Like listening to a hymn sung in a language you don't know."

Sarah smiled. "Chuck nerded out about the architecture."

"Speaking of which, how is Agent Jones doing?" said Beckman, already beginning to regret the inch she'd given them.

"Better, I think," said Sarah, unofficially the younger agent's minder. "She went to confession, and came out looking better. Less standoffish."

"I didn't know she was Catholic," said Beckman.

"There are no atheists in foxholes," said Chuck, and Beckman granted him the point. "We left her to escort Shaw's body back to the CIA. She's got our redacted reports, so hopefully she won't get into any more trouble than he's already given her."

Beckman made a note to reach out to the agent's superior. "She shouldn't. I made sure they understood the peculiar circumstances of the case. She'll get the help she needs." She moved Agent Jones out of her inbox. The less said about Shaw the better, the investigation into his affairs having already brought a number of unsavory facts to light. "As will you, Chuck, although the security level of your therapist will obviously have to be much higher."

"Why?" asked Chuck. "There was nothing about the Intersect in the whole case."

"That we know of," amended Beckman. "When the Intersect killed, it crashed and almost took you with it. I can't imagine what it might do to you when you're the active agent, or what you might do to it. You haven't flashed since the event?"

"No."

"Good," said the General, "We'll try to keep it that way. It will take some time to arrange for a proper therapist, and Casey can't wait. You will return to Burbank to deal with your sister directly. For now, though, please wait outside. I need to speak to Sarah confidentially."

Three of Chuck's fingers curled around three of Sarah's. "General," she said, "Unless it's mission related, I assure you there's nothing you need to say to me that you can't say in front of Chuck as well."

"This isn't about Chuck, it concerns you alone."

Fingers flexed. "I'm not alone," said Sarah, with a certain _I'll never be alone again_ note to her voice.

Beckman examined Sarah's face–calm, still… _soothed_ –her gaze moving down Sarah's arm, the joined fingers bridging the gap to Chuck, doing his best Carmichael impression. "I see." She looked back to Sarah. "You'll remember then that Col. Casey called me about the events in the train yard…?"

Sarah nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"He also mentioned that there was more to it than what he'd told me, but when I pressed him for details, he said that I should hear them from you."

Sarah tried to remember back that far, so long ago that she was practically a different person. "I'm afraid I don't…" Train yard. The Red Test, Chuck's red test, not entirely fake. His face, trying so hard to resist, but the program…His program.

And then later with Casey. Her program. _I'm the landlord._ "Oh." She sat up, her hand rotating under Chuck's as his rotated over hers.

Beckman pounced. "'Oh'? That sounds…significant."

Her boss really liked being kept in the loop on significant developments. During one of Chuck's TNG marathons, Sarah had commented that Data should have gotten Picard's permission before installing an emotion chip. Operatives don't just go around altering themselves, especially for personal reasons, and if they find out they've been altered they should tell somebody. "Um, yes, uh, ma'am." She'd told Casey. He was there, and he wouldn't want someone watching his back that he couldn't trust completely. He would have alerted Beckman, he _had_ , if he thought there was anything to be concerned about. _Thank God for Casey._

Beckman kept her face stern. The Ice Queen was dithering. Terrific. _Thank God for Casey._ She could hardly expect Sarah to tell her about a rip tide while she's drowning in it, but with him as her lifeguard..."Perhaps you'd be willing to share it with me while you're sharing it with Chuck."

Sarah had already shared it with Chuck. "Um…"

"Agent…Sarah," said General Beckman. "Report."

* * *

Somewhere else…

Thunder rolled. The leaders of the Ring were technically equals, but as always, some were a little equaller. "C, report."

"Agent Shaw is no longer in LA," snapped C. "His name is no longer listed as being assigned there, but it's no longer listed as being assigned anywhere. No transport out of LA has his name on any manifest. Agent Walker left LA for DC the same night as their attack on D, in the company of a civilian, currently unnamed."

A sounded dubious. "Shaw?"

"Doubtful. More likely someone from the Buy More, we know they have an asset hidden among the crew there."

"Hm," rumbled A. "Continue."

"Walker's flight continued to Paris from DC, no one got on or off her plane. No one could see who got off the plane in Paris. Not long after her departure from DC, another flight also took off for Paris, one passenger. Today a flight returned from Paris to DC with three passengers, none of them Shaw."

"Conclusions?"

"None with a high probability," said C. "Most likely is that Shaw is now in Paris. The cipher component is missing from D's safe, and some of its parts were fabricated near there. If so, he's on a wild goose chase. The only other possibility with any likelihood is that they were looking for the source of the footage that D revealed to Shaw."

"Good luck to them," said A, sounding almost human in his amusement. It didn't last. "That weak link has already been cut."

"As usual you acted too hastily," said B. "The loss of Sydney Prince's database has devastated our western operations. We need men like Zevlovski to rebuild."

"Zevlovski wasn't killed by one of ours, or even one of theirs, a sure sign that his usefulness had come to an end," said A. "Rebuilding our operations in the west will be a good test of Team Bartowski's effectiveness."

* * *

At an airport in LA, some turbulence, long in the building…

One day became two. Two skipped completely over three and four, and turned into five. Five days. The longest week of John Casey's life, including those two fruitless weeks in the walls of a tropical fortress. In summer. The closer they got to the end of his time of trial, the thinner his patience grew. "If you don't stop that I'm going to shoot you."

"It's an airport, John," said his intended victim, with a laugh. She didn't stop her nervous pacing. "Do you really think that'll fly, pun intended?"

Airports have security. He might get arrested. For a brief moment he almost smiled, but then his natural mood reasserted itself. _Nah._ That would only be good for a day or so, then he'd be right back here again, only worse. _Suck it up, Marine._ Just a little longer, a few more minutes, and reinforcements, that is, Chuck and Sarah would be here to take the heat off of him.

Ellie reached the far end of her pattern, and turned back."What's taking them so long?"

Casey considered the last week with a shudder. "It's only been five days. It should be a lot longer."

Ellie stopped, looking dismayed. "Longer?"

"What happened in Paris was a tragedy."

"Chuck and Sarah...?" Ellie's voice crawled to a stop, unsure what to say. She looked around, unhappily aware of how some things can't be said, not that she wanted to say them. "You know," she said, looking at Casey with some new understanding.

 _Killed a man? Yeah, I know. Been there, done that._ Casey gave her a grunt, the first of many. "That too, but I'm talking about years ago. That's when this all started, some REMF in DC tried to break Walker, but she doesn't break." Casey shrugged. "A lot of stuff around her broke, though."

Ellie came over and sat by him, tired of pacing, more than willing to put those energies to better use. The jargon slid by her, but she understood words like 'break' even so, and she was a doctor. "What happened?"

"Ask her," said Casey, with no small amount of personal satisfaction. Ellie was a real devil at weaseling little secrets, but this wasn't his story to tell. Chuck leaving him stuck with Ellie while Chuck went to save Sarah was the right move, but Sarah was saved and he needed some rest.

"Is that them?" asked Ellie suddenly.

Casey had already heard the approach of the crowd. _I certainly hope so._ The plane had landed a while before but airports are almost as bad letting people out as they are letting them in. He stayed in his seat, unlike Ellie. "Sit down," he said. "They'll know where we are before they come through the door. You're just calling attention to yourself."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing," said Casey. "Except that you're also calling attention to me, and anyone who makes me makes them."

Ellie sat down. "Your life sucks."

Casey thought about Alex, working her way through school while he had a go-bag full of cash. "Don't I know it."

"There they are," said Ellie. "Where'd they get the luggage from? And the clothes? They didn't go Paris dressed like that, did they?"

"No," said Casey, pleased that she noticed. "Just props for the cover." He took the keys from her hand and stood up, saying, "We'll take my car." As he led the way across the floor he said, "You're fascinated by something over on the left."

Ellie looked left. "I am?"

Casey turned to look where she was looking. "You are." He accidentally bumped into a tall, curly-haired man, obviously going on or returning from a vacation with his SO, or whatever they were called now. The two excused each other politely and went their separate ways.

Chuck and Sarah walked out of the terminal. "I hope you remember where we parked," she said.

Chuck pulled a set of keys from his pocket. Ellie's. He pressed a button the fob and heard a beep, with a flash of lights, bright in the sudden gloom. "Just as I thought," he said, "Lot K-C."

Marine humor. "Of course."

As they stepped off the curb the skies opened up and rain soaked them through in seconds. With a wry smile, Chuck held out his hand. "Welcome home." She took it, and together they braved the storm.

* * *

 **A/N2** Anyone who's read my other stories knows how much I dislike the way they leapt into the sleeping car after killing Shaw. I thought Chuck at least should have gone to a church or a therapist instead, so here they are. I spent a bit of time trying to figure out how to describe the church experience, and reminded myself of a beautiful video I saw of a Psalm sung in Aramaic for Pope Francis, a hymn sung in a language I don't know, and it doesn't matter a bit that I don't know it. FF won't let me post a link but google 'pope francis aramaic chant' and you'll get it.

This will probably be the hardest story I've ever written. I hope you'll all help me get through it with some supportive commentary.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N** _Hello?_ I look around the vast emptiness of my imagination, my flashlight small in the dark. _Helloo-oo?_

* * *

" _Your guests have arrived."_

" _I'm not alone."_

" _Oh."_

" _Welcome home."_

* * *

Casey waited until they were secured in his car and pulled out into traffic before speaking up. The rain drumming on the roof was better than any ticker. "That's called a handoff."

Ellie looked at him funny. "What is?"

The sound of her uncertainty was more than a little gratifying. "The handoff I just did." Casey chuckled. "When I bumped into Chuck, I handed off your car keys to him."

"I must have missed that part," said Ellie, sounding disappointed.

"If you'd been looking, you might have, but you were looking to your left, like I told you to," said Casey, not one to rub it in. Not _too_ much. "Your part is called 'the magnet', and you did your job."

"I did?"

"Sure," said Casey. "Anyone who might have been looking at us–not likely but that's the sort of assumption I try not to make–they would most likely looking at you, plus it gave me an excuse to bump into him."

Ellie looked down at herself, her clothes, her…self. "I don't want spies looking at me, John!"

 _Yeah, that could have been handled better._ "Relax. Think of it like a magic trick, and you're the beautiful assistant. Your job is to distract the audience."

Her breathing sped up. "An audience full of spies out to kill us!"

"Give it a rest," snapped Casey. "That whole 'spies out to kill us thing' is TV stuff." He waited until she seemed to be listening before he continued. It took a while. The steady drumming of the rain helped. "The business of intelligence-gathering is the gathering of intelligence, which is about as interesting as watching paint dry. It's sleight-of-hand, good timing, and never being noticed. What it's not about is killing other agents, that's Walker's problem in a nutshell." And that was all he was going to say about Walker's problem. Let Ellie dig into that one with Walker, and Chuck too. He sighed regretfully. "Not to mention that you can't have a good clandestine operation with a lot of alarms going off and dead bodies everywhere."

"Not even at the end?" She sounded doubtful, but then she'd seen his gun collection.

"That's covert," said Casey, with some degree of relish. He liked covert ops. Honest, aboveboard, violent. "Assassination. Terrorism. The kind of stuff we stop, and by 'we' I mean Chuck. A good operation, clandestine or covert, is invisible at least until the end. He's got a gift for sniffing them out." Not that he would or could tell her the specifics of that 'gift'. Let her believe what she would.

"Sounds like a curse to me," said Ellie. She didn't sound completely unhappy, though. Casey had already told her what a _bad_ operation looked like, knowing how she would react. As a doctor she understood the need for the occasional surgery, but the metaphor was far from perfect and he never pushed it that far.

"He's said the same many times," said Casey. "Didn't stop him. Thank you for that." Chuck's parents may have given him his brains and maybe some other stuff too, but they weren't here and Ellie was. He'd met Orion, their father, and knew what he had to contribute, which was a lot but not nearly enough. For a second Casey pondered the mystery of Chuck's mother. She must have been a heck of a woman, to have turned out two kids like these.

"I didn't do it for you," said Ellie, pulling him out of those speculations.

She hadn't done it for anybody. She'd had no plan other than to survive, to stay together. "Didn't say you did." She'd succeeded on both counts. A pair of diamonds instead of a handful of gravel. "The important thing is that you did it."

* * *

Back in DC…

"Can you do it?" asked General Beckman.

" _Of course I can do it,"_ said a man's slow, gravelly voice from the speaker of her phone. With her workload Beckman couldn't waste a hand holding the receiver, and with her hair those headsets were uncomfortable. _"You should have called me long before this. This is new technology, an incredible opportunity, and there's a facility in LA I can work out of. Unfortunately, it will take some time to shift my current workload to the other staff. They have to be matched pretty carefully."_

"Understood," said Beckman. There was an old saying, 'all sane spies are alike, but crazy spies are crazy in their own ways', which she doubted somewhat. It seemed to her that even the _sane_ spies were crazy in their own ways, but as long as it was a useful sort of crazy no one cared much. "Best speed possible, then. Keep me in the loop on your progress, so that I can let them know when to expect you. Until then I have to keep Agent Carmichael benched."

" _And you don't want that."_

"The country can't afford it," said the General. "Shaw's mishandling of his assignment hurt us and helped his subjects." A case of 'useful crazy' that had turned out to be less useful and more crazy than expected. "His notes are unreliable at best, and we need our best team to correct that."

The man sighed. _"I'll do what I can, Diane. Until then, I would recommend reading the sister into these events. Her scientific background and devotion to Agent Carmichael's well-being should help with his healing."_

"Already begun." Beckman smirked, unseen. "She interrogated Col. Casey extensively. I ordered him to be as candid as possible."

" _I'll bet he enjoyed that."_

"I had to call my team out of Notre Dame to save him from her."

" _A location like that, they must have been even more desperate than you,"_ said the man. _"I'm not sure that was a good idea."_

"They were there for an agent who isn't part of the team," said Beckman. "Shaw gave her a Red Test and then isolated her. They made me wait until she was ready."

" _Good for them. Hm, yes, I see her. Not one of mine either,"_ said the man. _"So, not a bad idea, overall. A small rescue mission, just the thing to give them a purpose, without touching the areas we don't want touched. Do you have more?"_

"I'll find some," said Beckman. She'd make some, if she had to, but she probably wouldn't have to. She had Daniel Shaw's career to pick over with a fine-toothed comb. "There's plenty going on in LA right now, but there are never enough people for all the cases, and the dregs are sinking to the bottom as usual. Going through that lot should keep even this team busy for a while."

" _Minimal violence."_

"They're dregs, Leo, but they're Ring dregs," said Beckman, calling up the outline of planned operations on the west coast and scrolling to the bottom. "I'll do what I can, but no promises."

* * *

Somewhere, on a shielded, encrypted, and very secure conference call…

"Violence," said E. "Maximum violence."

"Yes, thank you for that completely unexpected contribution, E," said A, amused as ever by E's ignorant belligerence. "Does anyone else remember our overriding mission parameters?"

"Recovery of the stolen data," said C. Operations were his area, and with the death of D so was development.

"Restoration of our western operations," said B.

"Correct," said A. "Agent Shaw set us back years, gentlemen. That data still represents our best path forward, but I do not accept, as E seems to, that we should simply reach out and take it. Not only would a self-destruct doom our chances, there are better ways to use that data than E has apparently thought of. C, you suggested we use Team Bartowski, what progress have you made on that front?"

"Now that they have finally returned to LA, expectations are that General Beckman will put them to use in the ongoing western cleanup effort," said C. "As part of that effort, I have the list of those operations. I will arrange the proper revelations in the proper locations, to get them acting on our behalf for their own reasons. If they remain as effective as they have been, we should be back on our original schedule in a few weeks."

"You think highly of them," said B. Their original schedule, the one Agent Shaw had disrupted, had them in control of most of Asia by this point.

"I do."

"You'll pardon me if I continue our current efforts to rebuild, regardless."

"It would be unprofessional of you not to," said C.

* * *

At home in Echo Park…

Chuck was in the kitchen making tea. He and Sarah were both in pajamas and robes, their wet clothing in the wash. Sarah sat on the couch under a blanket, watching him. She liked watching him, and he liked to watch her watching him. "Here we go," he said with a smile, picking up the two saucers and bringing them out to the table. "One soothing brain bath coming up, if the description on the box is to be believed."

"As long as it's hot," said Sarah.

Chuck mis-stepped, and one cup splashed on his thumb. "Ah! Ah. It is, yet it is." He put the cups down quickly and wiped his thumb on the robe. "I once knew a woman who could take dinner from the oven and put it on the table, and it would be cold. Not me, though." He pulled the blanket over his legs.

Sarah picked up her unspilled mug and took a sip. "Mm," she hummed. "Soothing." She put the robe's sleeves over her hands and held the cup around the sides.

"That bad, huh?" asked Chuck. He picked up the cup and sniffed the brew suspiciously.

"I would guess it was Devon's contribution," said Sarah. She looked around Ellie's living room. "Shouldn't we be in your place?"

"And make Ellie look for us?" asked Chuck. "Are you crazy?" Outside they heard a door slam. It wasn't a car. "Whoops." He threw off the blanket and started to rise.

Too late. The front door slammed open. "Charles Irving Bartowski," said Ellie, puffing like a dragon about to incinerate them. Casey, of course, was nowhere in sight. "What do you think you're doing, trying to hide from me?"

Chuck froze. "But," he said, gesturing at the floor and the table and Sarah and everything, "We were right here…"

"I don't care where you were, where were you?" said Ellie.

Chuck tried again, gesturing at the floor and the table and Sarah and everything, "We were right here…"

Sarah stood up behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Don't bother with facts, Chuck, you'll just make it worse."

Ellie slammed the door shut and scooted right over. "Sarah!" She wrapped the blonde agent in a typically bone-crushing hug. "Are you all right?"

Sarah's eyes bugged out and she gasped. "I was."

Ellie let go, gripping Sarah's arms instead. "What's the matter? What's wrong? What did he do?"

"Chuck? He saved me."

"Of course he did," said Ellie, looking at her brother fondly. She looked at his hand. "Is that tea? Thanks, little brother, I am kind of dry," said Ellie. She took the mug and drank about half of it off in one swallow. Her face screwed up in disgust and she handed the mug back. "Ew! Where'd you get that?"

"It was the only tea you had."

"That's because I drink the good stuff," said Ellie. She turned back to Sarah. She blinked. "What was I saying?"

Sarah frowned. "Chuck saved me."

"Of course he did," said Ellie, looking at her brother fondly. She frowned at the mug in his hand, a little confused. She shook her head slightly, and refocused on Sarah. "So, you're a spy."

Sarah nodded, preparing herself an Ellie-class third degree inquisition. Casey had endured five days of it, could she do any less? "Yes…"

"So have you been leading me on all this time? You're not going to be my sister?" asked Ellie with a pout.

 _What?_ "Ellie, I've never led you on, at least not about that," said Sarah. "I've loved Chuck since day one…"

"A cover girlfriend for a real girlfriend?" asked Ellie, and Sarah nodded. "So would you also be a cover wife for a real wife?" Her grip tightened. "A cover _sister_?"

Sarah passed the buck, God help her. "Uh, he's…never asked."

"Chuck!" shouted Ellie, glaring at Chuck, and he recoiled, throwing tea all over himself while falling over the arm of the couch, to sprawl upon the cushions.

He didn't try to stand, or even wipe off the tea. "What?"

"Ask!" hissed Ellie in a savage whisper, as if Sarah wasn't right there, clenched in her hands.

"Uh…" He looked back and forth at the two ladies, stopping on Sarah. "Marry me?"

Sarah blinked. "Okay."

Chuck looked at his sister. "Okay?"

"Okay," caroled Ellie. Grinning maniacally, she pulled Sarah in for another hug.

* * *

Across the compound…

Casey threw his headphones against the wall. "God- _dammit_!"

* * *

Back in Ellie's apartment…

Ellie relaxed the hug but still did not let Sarah go. "You can go home now, little brother. I'll send her back to you when I'm done."

Chuck saw panic in Sarah's eyes. Torture she was trained to handle, but not this. He reached out to put the mug on the table and fell off the couch. "Ow."

"Chuck!" As one, the two ladies reached for Chuck, Sarah moving the table with effortless strength as Ellie lifted him off the ground.

Chuck moved to stand between his sister and his new fiancée. "I'm not going anywhere, sis, not for the General, not for you."

"I _love_ you," growled Sarah from behind him.

Ellie looked over his shoulder at something he was probably just as glad he couldn't see. "Fine. Stay there." She marched off to the kitchen, rummaged in a drawer, and came back. "Hands. _Left_ hands," she corrected as they automatically reached for her.

Ellie held up a patch of twist-ties and pulled two off. "This worked for me and Devon, it'll work for you." She wrapped one tie around Sarah's ring finger and twisted it firmly, then Chuck's. "There. Now, what I have joined together can spend one damn hour in separate rooms." She took Sarah's hand in her own. "Go home, little brother. My new sister and I need a little…girl time."

* * *

 **A/N2** I always thought the proposal plot of S4 was vastly overblown. After S3 they were so clearly together, I didn't see the point of them even getting married. Since canon insisted upon it, I can at least handle the matter more expeditiously.

This will probably be the hardest story I've ever written. I hope you'll all help me get through it with some supportive commentary.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N** Trying to get this story back into something like the canon line. Somebody wanted to know what Sarah said to Beckman, but the best I can offer here is what she has to say to Ellie. Maybe soon I can offer Beckman's take on what Sarah had to say.

* * *

" _That's called a handoff."_

" _Minimal violence."_

" _That bad, huh?"_

" _Girl time."_

* * *

Chuck stood outside the door to his sister's apartment, not entirely sure how he got there. He looked down at the twist-tie wrapped around his finger. Engaged? What? How did Ellie manage to do these things? He caught a whiff of his shirt, still damp with that awful tea, and gave a small prayer up to the gods of tea that she didn't like to drink that one.

Not that he had any intention of trying to get out of anything. The only thing stupider than trying to break an engagement to the smartest, funniest, most beautiful, sexiest woman in the world, would be trying to break an engagement to a professional assassin. Besides, he didn't want to. It may not have been one of his many and multi-layered, some would say overwrought, plans, but he wasn't about to complain about the outcome.

"Bartowski!" snarled a familiar voice, and sure enough, there was Casey standing in his doorway, glaring at him. "Lose that idiot grin and get over here. Help me move all this stuff back where it's supposed to be." Chuck followed. 'This stuff' was Casey's sensory and signaling equipment, all of which had been moved into his bedroom as part of a mission. "With Shaw out of the picture there's no reason to deny myself a decent night's sleep."

Shaw was 'out of the picture' because Chuck had killed him, but to Casey that was simply a fact, neither condemned nor condoned. Chuck had a different view of the matter. "Sarah and I are engaged," he said, showing Casey the twist-tie. Not exactly what he planned to say, but those were the words that came out.

Casey had already had time to think about that. "And your bedroom window is opposite my bedroom window," he said, his face twisting with disgust at some anticipated experience. "Switch rooms with Grimes."

"Okay, now that may be good tactics," said Chuck, sounding doubtful. Maybe it was the fumes from the tea, but his brain seemed to be slipping sideways. "But it's bad strategy, since a) that room used to be Ellie's, so there's no way he'll give it up willingly, and b) he's currently dating your daughter." So putting him, and therefore him and her, closer to her father's bedroom window, might not be the best idea in some circumstances.

"Ugh," said Casey. He got up real close and poked his finger into Chuck's chest. "Well, then you'd better keep it down, or I'm gonna come over there and keep it down for you. Understand?"

"I'm sure Sarah will, when you explain it to _her_ like that." _Sarah and I are engaged!_

Casey backed off. "Just move the gear, moron," he snarled. "The sooner it's set up, the sooner the General can send me back into combat." He sniffed, and looked down. "What's that smell?"

"Devon's tea," said Chuck.

Casey backed away, to his chest of drawers. He pulled one open and pulled out a green object, so flat it was almost compressed. "Lose the robe, change the shirt." He tossed the T-shirt, but Chuck was too surprised to catch it. "Close that hole in your face. I've seen scrawnier guys than you in their skivvies. Make sure you bring that back to me clean and folded."

Chuck changed his clothes. "How do I look?"

It didn't hang on him _too_ badly. Spy school had been good for him. "Green," said Casey, shoving a monitor into Chuck's arms. "Let's get to work."

* * *

Across the courtyard…

Sarah and Ellie watched the door close behind Chuck, after he'd walked in a bit of a daze out into the world. "Oh," said Ellie, raising a hand to her mouth, "I hope I haven't spoiled it for you."

"Spoiled what?" asked Sarah, trying to extricate her arm from Ellie's grasp. The only 'girl time' she knew involved hand-to-hand combat.

"His proposal," said Ellie. "I'm sure he would have come up with something far more…um…" Her face clouded as she began to realize what sort of proposal her brother might have come up with on his own. And when.

"Far more um?" said Sarah. She sat down, but Ellie sat with her. "Ellie, you've just described the worst marriage proposal in the world. Something I would pay money to avoid."

Ellie smiled, relieved. "Oh. Well, congratulations, then."

Sarah decided to seize the day, or in this case, the hand. "It was my parents'."

Exit relieved smile. "Condolences." Ellie looked for a ray of sunshine. "Hopefully the marriage was more successful…"

Sarah shrugged, tightening her grip. Really, she didn't know what was wrong with Casey. "If my father isn't in prison he probably should be, and I fully expect to never see my mother again." Maybe he just liked to suffer.

"…So I'm guessing a small wedding would be best," said Ellie, trying to let go of Sarah's hand with no success.

"I'd say so," said Sarah, keeping her tone light with professional skill. "I wouldn't have enough guests to fill one pew on my side of the aisle." Those pews in that cathedral held what? Seven people? "And half of them would be telling me I was making a mistake."

"Your life sucks," said Ellie.

Sarah looked at the door Chuck was on the other side of. "It used to."

"I don't suppose you're going to tell me how you met my brother either." Casey had already shot her down on that line of questioning.

Sarah turned to her sister-in-law-to-be and let go of her hand. "Not without authorization." She touched Ellie's arm lightly. "I can't say it doesn't matter, but we're a team now, and I'm here to make sure Chuck stays safe."

Ellie stared at Sarah for a while, flexing her fingers. "Are you armed? Right now?"

Sarah curled toward Ellie, in a friendly, confidential sort of way. Her robe slipped, revealing a brace of knives strapped around her leg. She popped the top off her ring to show a needle. She pulled something on her watchband and unspooled a length of wire. She let go and it retracted. A twitch of the robe and Sarah was Sarah again. "That's until I could get the robe off."

"Please don't," said Ellie, raising a hand. "Save the floor show for Chuck."

"I do."

"Save _that_ for the minister." Ellie tried to laugh. "Officiant. Whatever." She looked at Sarah for a bit longer. "Casey said they tried to break you?"

"Did he tell you how?" If he did she would break him.

Ellie shook her head. "He said to ask you."

Of course he did. "An old government program, benign originally…"

"Aren't they all?" scoffed Ellie.

"No, but this one was. People aren't naturally killers. It takes experience, it takes practice, it takes need, and even then most people will mess it up." Sarah waved a hand. "Anyway, by the time I took it, a test to see if agents _could_ kill had become a program to get them _to_ kill."

Envelope-pushing. "Making monsters."

"Yeah," said Sarah. "Until they made me. The second thing I killed was the program."

Ellie put her hand over Sarah's. "Sweetie, you're no monster."

Sarah looked at her hand. Their hands. "For a long time I believed I was. Is there a difference between believing yourself a monster and being one? I thought myself worse than Frankenstein's Monster, since I still had my soul and acted like a monster anyway." Something itched on her cheeks. "I thought I was damned."

Ellie wiped the tears away. "Do I have to guess?"

"No," said Sarah. "Chuck happened. He showed me that I wasn't Frankenstein's creature, but Jekyll's."

* * *

Across the courtyard…

Casey brought out the last item, the Presidential Cigar Box still mostly full of pre-revolutionary Costa Gravan Double Coronas. He was setting it back in its former place of honor when the monitor beeped. "Clear out, Bartowski," he snapped, as Chuck went to stand in his usual spot. "You're not presentable."

The screen lit as Chuck stepped out of range. "Colonel Casey," said the General, "I trust Agents Bartowski and Walker have arrived safely."

"You may as well start calling them the Agents Bartowski, General," said Casey, with a sigh. "Ellie told the moron to propose, and he did."

"About time," said Beckman with a sniff. Then she frowned. "And you found out how?"

"I told him, General," said Chuck, sticking his face and hand into pickup range as Casey hung his head. "See? Sarah and I are engaged!"

"Agent Bartowski!" Beckman recoiled from the close-up view of his manic grin. "Is that a twist-tie?"

Chuck nodded, wiggling his finger. "That was Ellie's idea. She wanted to talk to Sarah alone and gave us these."

"Clever," said Beckman, amazed that it worked. "And why are you not standing with Col. Casey?"

The grin went away, thank God. "He told me not to."

"He's in his skivvies, General," said Casey quickly. "It was pouring rain when they arrived. There's more, but I'll save it for a footnote."

"I look forward to it," said Beckman, straight-faced. "Agent Bartowski, on the advice of a CIA psychiatrist with clearance enough to know the particulars of your case, I am directing you to read your sister in to the Intersect project. Hopefully she can help more than your father has been able to.

"Also I have arranged for you and Agent Walker to see him. His details have been sent to your computer, but he won't be able to see you until he arrives in a few days. In the meantime, we have a number of missions for your team, low-level fallout from the capture of Prince's base. Nothing that should require either flashing or violence. Have fun."

"Have fun, she says," grumbled Casey, after the screen went dark. "With no violence?"

* * *

Across the courtyard…

"You lost me," said Ellie.

Sarah tucked the robe in more tightly around herself. "My father is a con man, and raised me to be a con man just like him."

"You're right, he should be in jail," said Ellie, because that's what Sarah said before.

Sarah shook her head, staring at the floor. "Anything else and I probably wouldn't have met Chuck," she said, "So I'm willing to let bygones be bygones."

"Except…?" prompted Ellie, because there had to be one.

"Except that I was nine!" snapped Sarah. "Each day, every day, I'd hear it, see it. 'Love is for suckers.' Never feel sorry for the marks. They all deserve it. If they weren't trying to cheat they couldn't be cheated."

"Oh my God," said Ellie, reaching out to hold her sister-to-be. _Nine!_ To do that to her, so young… "He turned you into Hyde." Or kept her from developing into Jekyll. Same thing, in the end.

"Not quite," said Sarah into her hair. "He loved _me_."

"Not very well." Like a cactus.

"More than the CIA." Sarah sniffed. "I wanted out. I was going to graduate, have a real life, a real future. Then they came…"

"And finished what he started."

Sarah took a deep breath. "Somewhere inside me is a little girl, surrounded by a very high wall, trying to get out," she said. "She wants her life back, and I want to give it to her. If the CIA was afraid of me before, wait until they see me now."

"No," said Ellie, with a sharp squeeze. "You don't want to be that."

"No," said Sarah, relaxing into the embrace. "I don't. But they don't know that."

* * *

Casey stood on Ellie's doorstep, wondering what the hell he thought he was doing. He tapped, gently. "Who is it?" asked someone from within. The door opened and Ellie was there, looking at him funny. "John?"

"Ellie," said John politely. Very politely. "Is Sarah still here? I need to speak with her."

"You're cutting into our girl-time, John," said Ellie.

"It has some bearing on that, Ellie," said Casey quickly. "General Beckman has cleared us to read you into the mission."

Ellie pushed the door open. "So, which of you has the honor?"

"Eh, Chuck does," said Casey, as Sarah came over. "In addition to the authorization, she also gave us a pile of missions, little ones, until a company shrink can get out here."

"You're going on a mission, and leaving Chuck behind to brief me?" asked Ellie.

"Not exactly," said Casey. "He's taking one mission that he can do himself, doing it now, actually. He'll take care of your briefing, while Sarah and I take care of another mission of our own. I told you, they're small. We'll probably get through the whole pile in just a couple of weeks."

"What's Chuck going to be doing?" asked Sarah, as Devon came up to his house and stepped around Casey to go inside.

"Relax, he's staying in his room," said Casey, moving aside. "No field work. All he's doing is use his computer to look into some Ring money-man named Bale." Casey grunted, confused. "Called him a 'nice little snack'."

"Oh God," said Ellie. She latched onto Devon's arm as he passed.

Casey smiled at her reaction, and said to Sarah, "Anyway, you and I are going after a courier, some guy named Jean-Claude."

* * *

 **A/N2** I kept thinking of Chuck pulling an 'I am Groot' bit, saying 'Sarah and I are engaged' no matter what he was thinking. Since this version has no Morgan-sect arc, I'm putting those episodes to a different use. Bale was a pretty weak villain, and Jean-Claude never got much screen time.

This will probably be the hardest story I've ever written. I hope you'll all help me get through it with some supportive commentary.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N** When I did episode one of the previous season I went into it thinking it would be six chapters. I really wanted to put a lot of detail into the story, turn it into a extra-long special episode. This time I wasn't planning to, but I may have to do it again, with Chuck dealing with Ellie and Bale, while Sarah and Casey are taking on Jean-Claude in a scenario we only saw the end of. There's also the little matter of bringing Ellie up to speed, in some way I haven't already done before.

* * *

" _Sarah and I are engaged."_

" _It used to."_

" _Is that a twist-tie?_ _"_

" _A 'nice little snack'."_

* * *

Ellie walked across the courtyard, a little hesitant. Casey and Sarah had gone away, someplace they called Castle, where they would do whatever spies did–and she knew a lot more now than she ever would have wanted to know about what spies did–to prepare for their mission. Leaving Chuck and her behind, and alone.

Alone in the dark.

She looked at the place where she'd hidden herself just a few days before, when she'd had so many questions about Casey. The answers hadn't exactly cheered her up, but at least she knew that no one else was hiding in those same bushes tonight. She looked across the walk to the window on Chuck's side, brightly lit and welcoming. Still, she walked up to the front door rather than around to that portal that had let her into so much chaos in his life. "Chuck?" she asked, pushing the door open a little bit.

"Hey, sis," he called. "Come on in."

"Is it safe?" she asked. Casey said he'd insisted Chuck take 'proper protective measures', whatever those were, but she had a pretty good idea of what Casey would consider proper.

"Trap doors are off, the leopard is in its cage," said Chuck.

She came in and went to stand outside his bedroom door. He was typing furiously and didn't look up at her. In other words, nothing looked different. "Very funny."

"You should have seen what I had to put up with before I became an agent," said Chuck. Then he stopped typing, looking down at the twist-tie still on his finger. "Well, no, actually it's better you never saw that."

"John told me about the surveillance." He also showed her some of the recordings, including parts of her own room. Not many, since it was less exposed to the outside, and the cameras were aimed at those points of access, nowhere else. He didn't watch the live feed from those either, relying on something he called facial rec and motion alerts.

Chuck shook his head, and went back to work. "And you let him live?"

"I was angrier for your sake," said Ellie, coming to stand behind him. She didn't waste time looking at the screen. It never meant anything to her before and it still didn't. "They had no business taking over your life like that."

"Well," said Chuck diffidently, the way he always did when he was about to say something she wouldn't agree with. "They had _business_ , they just had no right. Bryce Larkin trapped all of us between a rock and a hard place. We had to reach an accommodation or something would have had to break." Still, it was embarrassing that he'd let them get away with so much, early on. If Ellie had been there she would have gotten him a much better deal.

Ellie stared at the screen, code blocks shifting like her thoughts. Casey hadn't mentioned Bryce, but he wouldn't, would he? Not if Bryce was mixed up in whatever this was and Casey didn't have permission to talk about any of it _._ The only time she could even get him to admit looking at the recordings from her room was the night he claimed she was poisoned, years ago. All she could remember of that night was that Sarah was wearing purple, and something about peaches, but Casey had at least part of it recorded, from when she burst into Chuck's room. It had nothing to do with them, but if they hadn't been there, especially Chuck giving up the antidote for her, she would have died. Like Bryce had died. "He was a spy, too?" She began to get angry again. Was her brother's life ruined as part of a…a…conspiracy? Some kind of plan?

"Even back in Stanford, if you can believe it," said Chuck lightly, oblivious. "Getting me expelled? Spy stuff. Jill? Not his fault, but still spy stuff. Oh! And speaking of spy stuff, there are papers over there for you to sign." Chuck pointed without stopping what he was doing. "If you want to hear about all this stuff, that is."

Her brother was willing to– _had_ –forgiven Bryce? No surprise. He was always more forgiving than she was. Giving and _for_ giving. Both Casey and Sarah gave up their lives for Chuck, that day in the hospital, and he gave it up for her.

That was a thing.

Those two wouldn't give up their lives for anything. They'd offer them, trade them if they had to, but only if the safety of the nation depended on it. On Chuck. Thinking back, she could hear it in Casey's voice tonight. He must have used the word 'mission' twelve times, but only once did he ever say ' _the_ mission'. Chuck was _the_ mission. And he would have thrown that away for her.

She might have to kill her brother tonight. "I do." Ellie went over to the pile of documents and started to read.

* * *

One bit of quickie mission-prep later…

Sarah sat in the back seat of a limo, rubbing her thumb over the twist-tie on her finger. _Chuck and I are engaged!_

Casey, playing the chauffeur as usual, looked in his rearview mirror and didn't like what he saw. "Get your head in the game, Walker," he said. "Your name's not Bartowski yet." Then he frowned. "It better not be, you couldn't have slipped _that_ into the last hour."

"Ellie would kill me," said Sarah.

"Ellie would pout," said Casey. She had a killer pout. "Jean-Claude will kill you, if you give him any reason to suspect that you're not the Ring agent he expects to show up at this shindig."

"What makes you think I'd do that?"

There was no traffic on a straight road, so Casey felt free to roll his eyes. "The grin, for one. The doodad on your finger that you keep fondling, for another."

Sarah put her hands in her lap, her face settling into a steady and serious expression.

"Better."

* * *

In the Casa de Bartowski y Grimes…

Ellie signed the last paper and slapped the whole wad onto the table next to Chuck. "Tell me about the mission," she said, sitting down next to him.

Chuck help up a little gizmo in his hand. "First, stick this on the window and press the button."

Ellie did as instructed.

"Good. That makes the window vibrate randomly," said Chuck. "Anyone trying to use a laser to read the vibrations off the window can't. No eavesdropping."

"Your typing doesn't do that?"

Chuck shrugged. "It might, but why risk it? You know what Casey would say."

Ellie'd just spent five days listening to Casey talk. "Yeah, I know what Casey would say. I also know he said 'the mission' earlier. What is 'the mission', Chuck?"

"Um…Me?"

Most of the time Ellie was happy to be right. This was not one of those times. "How?"

"Dad…figured out a way to use the human brain like a computer, and Bryce used it on me?"

Ellie fell back into her more maternal mode. _Dad?_ How could he be involved in all this? "Are you asking me or telling me?"

Chuck tried to keep the whine out of his voice. "I'm telling you so that you'll know it wasn't at all my fault."

She watched his fingers flying across the keyboard. They always did that when he was upset. "I doubt Bryce Larkin just walked up to you and said, 'hey Chuck, let me put a computer in your brain.' And how'd he do that, anyway?"

Fingers slowed. "He sent me an email, with a line from our game."

Treacherous bastard. "And of course you opened it…"

"He tricked me!"

"I thought Bryce hated you."

"So did I," said Chuck. "We found out the truth when I went back to Stanford that one time. He was really trying to protect me."

"From what?"

"From people in the government who wanted to use my brain like a computer."

 _What?_ "So to protect you from them he did it himself?"

"Five years later," said Chuck. "Better technology. And to be honest I'm not sure he ever meant for me to use the stuff he sent."

"Why not?" asked Ellie. "What did he send?"

"Government secrets encoded in a visual format. He stole them on my birthday, some rogue group of spies was after them, so he sent them to me."

"Why you?"

"Storage, I think. I had the highest retention level ever seen in my class. He knew that."

Ellie pounced. "How did he know that, Chuck?"

"One of my classes tested for it. They said I was at 98%. They would have conscripted me somehow."

Until Bryce accused him of cheating and had him expelled. "Just storage?"

"Probably. Most computers will freeze up if the data takes up too much space. Most of the agents who saw even parts of this data died."

 _Well, duh._ Of course they died. The brain is used one hundred percent, just not all at the same time. Ellie couldn't just sit anymore, so she got up and paced. "He could have killed you."

"It was everything we had, he had to take that chance," said Chuck. "Fortunately he got lucky."

You _got lucky._ "Only until I get my hands on him."

"That's what I mean," said Chuck. "He's dead. Twice over, now."

Hmmp. Ellie crossed her arms angrily. "So how's Dad mixed up in all this?"

"He invented the encoding technique."

"Of course he did." Ellie sighed, and smacked Chuck on the head.

"Ow!"

"What were you thinking, giving me that antidote!" she snapped. "If you had died all those secrets would have died with you."

"They would not," said Chuck, rubbing his ear. "The data just would have been in its original form, until they rebuilt the computer and recoded everything. Until that happened they had to keep me alive. I knew they would make every effort for that, but I didn't think they'd make every effort for you."

Ellie considered that. "Yeah, I guess so," she said sadly. "I mean, I'm nobody."

Chuck stood up, gripped her by the shoulders. "Don't ever say that. You are _my_ sister. You are everything to me."

Ellie reached up and rubbed the twist-tie on his finger. "Not everything, little brother," she said. "Not anymore."

* * *

In the limo…

"We're almost there," said Casey. "Do we need to do a character check?"

"I'm good, Casey."

"You'd better not be," he snapped back. "You're a high-level Ring operative. They're demanding, dictatorial, and they always look the part. They aren't good."

Sarah looked down at her outfit, a white dress white dress wedding dress bridal gown wedding married honeymoon limo! She giggled.

"Take it off," snarled Casey. "Now."

Sarah didn't untwist the tie, absolutely not, she pulled it off like a real ring and shoved into a protective side pocket of her clutch, next to the gun and her explosives, glaring at Casey the entire time.

He was actually happy to see it. "Don't blame me," he said, pointing out the window. "Blame him."

Sarah looked forward and saw a large bearded man standing at the entrance to the large house, shaking hands with guests as they entered. Casey ignored the various servants as they tried to direct him to a safe spot, putting the limo right in front of the entrance. Those same servants approached the door, only to pause as Casey got out, a scowl on his face and a hand tucked inside his jacket.

Jean-Claude came down from his perch, waving off the minions as Casey opened the door. A long shapely leg slid out, and a hand reached up. Casey took the hand and held it rock steady as a beautiful blonde got out of the car. The promises of her body were nothing compared to the promise in her gaze, of pitilessness in any action she took.

Jean-Claude came to a halt, a jackal in the presence of a lion. "I was expecting…someone else."

"Miss Prince overreached herself," said Sarah calmly, as Casey closed the door. "She won't be joining us for the rest of her life." She reached out a hand.

Jean-Claude took it. "And who do I have the pleasure of meeting?" He bowed over her hand, lifting it to his lips.

Sarah pulled it back. "Whoever you like. Miss Prince will be replaced and I can't imagine we shall ever meet again."

Jean-Claude smirked. "Miss…Pink, then."

Sarah carefully constructed a smile upon her face, lips curving just so, remembering at the last minute to include her cheeks. It was utterly artificial and wholly ghastly. "Darling," she crooned at Jean-Claude, stepping forward us he took a step back, seizing his arm. "It's been just too long."

"Yes," said Jean-Claude, nervously. He gestured toward the house. "Shall we go in?"

Sarah took him by the elbow. "Let's." As they walked toward the house, she added, "Oh, and driver?"

Casey grunted. "Yes, Miss Pink?"

A more genuine smile came over her face. This did not make it better. "Weapons free."

* * *

 **A/N2** Still trying to get away from being an info-dump.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N** The same storytelling genius that robbed us of Sarah waking to Chuck after he got the Norseman antidote, also decided to have them try to steal Jean-Claude's vase during the day while in evening dress.

* * *

" _Is it safe?"_

" _Tell me about the mission."_

" _Take it off."_

" _Weapons free."_

* * *

"Hmm," murmured Sarah in a thoughtful manner as she stood in the doorway, her hand on Jean-Claude's arm, surveying the room. Servants served, guests mingled, seeing and being seen, as unobtrusive guards kept the many treasures on display safe. "So many witnesses."

"Not at all, my dear Miss Pink, not at all," said Jean-Claude, patting her hand fondly, or at least that's how it looked to the witnesses. Sarah felt the cold clamminess of his fear. "They are my guests, as you are. Tonight is not a night for business." He stepped down into the throng, pulling her with him.

Prince's data said otherwise, and Sarah's alert level went up. She paused long enough to let him know that she was choosing to follow. Despite the thickness of the crowd and the presence of the host, Sarah had a clear space around her as she smiled at everyone. Jean-Claude had to call a champagne-bearing servant over and hand his guest a flute himself. She didn't drink any.

Jean-Claude led her straight to a pillar in the center of the room, carefully roped off to keep the crowd at bay. A number of guests were oohing and aahing the vase on display, something old and expensive because that's just the sort of person Jean-Claude was. That was the Ring's hook, but nothing in the files explained how this vase was the bait. Damn Shaw, for killing Prince like he did. Details like that were never written down.

"Magnificent, my dear, is it not?" At the sound of the host's voice many of the onlookers turned.

He wanted her to be interested. It could just be his vanity, in this context, but to her, probably not. "Magnificent," said Sarah, sounding bored.

"Perhaps you would care to take a…closer look?" asked Jean-Claude.

 _Too easy._ "Of course," said Sarah, and the crowd melted away between her and the velvet rope. At that distance the thing didn't look noticeably better or worse, and Sarah began to wonder what he expected her to see. She walked around the display, everyone getting out of her way, even though she wasn't glaring at any of them.

The colors of the vase were a major distraction, a useful feature from a spy's point of view. A micro-dot could go anywhere and be invisible at this distance. She had to get a closer inspection. "Jean-Claude, darling, is it my imagination, or is your pretty new bauble…chipped?"

The crowd broke out in hushed murmurs, but Jean-Claude himself looked almost relieved. Sarah took note, so she could be sure to tell Chuck later that his suggested set of code words was a good one. Really, 'chipped' for an expensive vase was almost too obvious. Good thing too, since 'dotted' would have been much harder to work into casual conversation.

The host immediately stepped forward, opening the velvet rope and stepping within. "Gloves!" A minion appeared with a box and held them out so that the master could cover his hands before touching the treasured item. "Miss Pink, if you would…?"

Another minion opened the rope by Sarah, and the glove-bearer held out a set for her. "Is this what you saw, my dear?" asked Jean-Claude, touching a particular spot delicately. Sarah nodded because why not. "That is no chip, that's a maker's mark. Attend." He took one of her hands in his own, guiding it to the lip of the vase. "Hold it here, firmly," he said, pressing her fingers down against the porcelain. Inside the vase, under her fingers, she felt a hard object. "Touch the vase, here," said Jean-Claude, and Sarah touched the outside while moving her fingers around the object inside, under cover of her host's hand. "You see?"

"I do," said Sarah, wondering how she was supposed to peel the chip inside the vase off, while wearing gloves, with his hands covering hers.

"Good," he said. "Now we release, carefully, and step away." Matching him like steps in a dance, Sarah soon found herself outside the ropes again. A minion handed Jean-Claude a cloth, and he mopped his brow dramatically. "Ah, my dear Miss Pink, you terrify me."

 _Good._ "Oh, poor Jean-Claude," said Sarah, looking amused. "Perhaps I should go. I would hate to ruin your party."

"That could never happen," said Jean-Claude, gesturing toward the door. "But if you must…" He offered her his arm.

"I'm afraid so," said Sarah, taking it. "You know what they say…" She glanced around with a smirk. "No rest for the wicked." Suddenly they had a clear path to the door.

He saw her to the exit but no farther. "I have changed my mind, Jean-Claude," said Sarah as they parted outside his door. "We will meet again soon."

"I look forward to it," he said, and he retreated to the dubious safety of his guests while she strode to her car. The driver leapt to open the door for her and see her settled in comfortably. All the minions watched their taillights with sighs of relief.

"Well?" asked Casey as they drove away.

"There's something inside the vase, he made sure I knew it," said Sarah. She rubbed the twist-tie around her finger. "You feel up to a little burglary?"

* * *

In the Casa de Bartowski y Grimes…

"I have such a headache right now," said Ellie, wincing. "Do you have any CIA-strength pain relievers?"

"Try the regular stuff I have in my medicine cabinet," said Chuck. "The CIA versions come with tracking nano-bots."

Her eyes widened in spite of the pain. "Really?"

"No, not really," said Chuck, shaking his head. "They've got so many secret projects underway, they have to buy off the shelf for a lot of the little stuff." He pointed. "Can I ask you to get it yourself? It's in the usual spot. I just can't walk away from what I'm doing." He sat back down without waiting for her agreement.

She nodded and walked away, perfectly able to find the medicine cabinet in the apartment she used to live in. She came back a few minutes later, already looking better, her mind clearer, and stood in the doorway, watching him. "What _are_ you doing?" she asked. "More…you know?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Casey said you called him a little snack." She looked at the window. "Do they know?"

"Not particularly, no," drawled Chuck. "I haven't hidden anything but I haven't gone out of my way to tell them about it, either."

"Are you going to?" When Chuck didn't immediately answer, Ellie stiffened her attitude. "You can't lie to them. They're your team. You don't keep secrets from people like that." She put her hands over her face. _God, I sound like Casey._

Chuck was watching her reflection on his monitor. "You were the one who told me to bury the P-man."

She lowered her hands. "You were going too far, you could have gotten arrested. You were all I had."

"I could have found him," shouted Chuck at his screen. "Found both of them."

"You _did_ find him," snapped Ellie back. "And it took a lot more than the P-man to do it." She stared past the back of Chuck's head, at the shifting blocks of code. "His program, again?"

Chuck nodded. "Sort of. Dad was hiding from a group that wanted to use his program to make super-agents. They were the ones Sarah and Casey were protecting me from. We destroyed them, and he took the program out, but it turned out they were just a part of a larger group, that also wanted his code, so I had to put it back in again to keep it away from them, and save my team. I don't think Dad knew about them, probably why he went away again."

"Casey called it the Ring." She didn't want to think about why her father went away again. "So why are you an agent now, when you weren't one before?"

"The new program came with abilities. I can fight, bake, dance…lots of stuff."

Casey had told her about the surgery, a terrifying thought without the context. Ellie snapped her fingers, an ability not in the Intersect. "Goya's reception."

"Yeah, that was one. I actually had to work at it to trip and fall on that guy."

Ellie snorted at an old memory. "Your poor dance instructor."

"I said I was sorry," muttered Chuck. "So, 'no secrets, no lies', that's your advice?"

"Your life is dangerous enough, Chuck," Ellie said, not sounding happy about it. "I'd rather you lied to me than to them, although I'm happy that you don't have to lie to me anymore, either."

"Me, too, sis. I still may to be able to tell you everything, but at least you'll know that I'm not telling you everything. Mission security, and all that."

She had to know. "Do you go on a lot of missions?"

Chuck shrugged. "I sort of had to," he said apologetically. "Dad's program didn't work without the proper input, and the fresher the input the better the output, you know. Garbage in, garbage out. Most of the time I'm looking at pictures and reports, down in Castle."

"Or here, working right in your own room," said Ellie. "I know which one I prefer."

"You and Sarah both," said Chuck. "She was always telling me to stay in the car."

"I'm sure that worked," scoffed Ellie. "I know she was pretty happy to hear about what you're doing here, while she's away."

"Yeah, this guy Bale is nothing special, not for the P-man. Steals money from all over, keeps it moving around. If it hadn't been for the Prince data we never would have found him."

Devon and Casey had told her all about Sydney Prince. "She needed money?"

Chuck shook his head. "Yes, but no. Special acquisitions. She had a network of assets and suppliers, some more willing than others, and some of them have–wait a minute."

Ellie looked at the gibberish on the screen. "What?"

* * *

In a van, on the side of a hill, outside the garden wall…

"What?" said Sarah.

Casey lowered the binoculars. "I said what the hell happened to his party?" He resumed his scrutiny of the gardens and the grounds beyond, dim and unpopulated.

"It was a cover," said Sarah, taking a look for herself. "He wanted his Ring contact to see the vase, the party was just so she wouldn't stand out."

 _Good luck with that._ Any party Prince would fit into, Walker would stand out from. Casey was just as glad that Chuck wasn't around to speak similar thoughts, where he'd have to hear them. "Plus he's a bit of a snob."

Sarah nodded. "Plus he's a bit of a snob." She put her optics away and put on her NVGs. "Let's get to work." They left the van and ghosted down the wall. Sarah uncoiled a rope as she ran to Casey. He caught her foot, lifted her up and threw her over to the other side. She anchored the rope and Casey climbed over to join her.

If there had been any guards patrolling the grounds, they would have heard nothing from the garden as Sarah and Casey crept through it toward the house. But there were no guards, which caused the two to go ever more slowly, spy senses twitching.

At the house, Casey disabled the alarms as Sarah made the locks roll over and play dead. Once inside the door Casey scanned the place, seeing nothing. No people, no lasers. "This is too easy."

"Yes," said Sarah. Jean-Claude must want them to steal the vase, it's the only explanation that made sense. If the ugly thing was fake, they would be doing him a favor by taking it away. The Ring would get the chip, or whatever that hard thing was, and he'd get what? Probably a big insurance payout from some tame Ring agency, one that wouldn't look too closely at the lack of safeguards, or an alarm.

She went straight for the display pillar, Casey following. He had one of the plastic containment bags from Castle ready to go, and she reached out for the vase with gloved hands, making sure that the hard thing was still inside the vase. She tilted the vase, and lifted it off the pedestal.

Lights went on, all over the room. Jean-Claude stood to one side, unarmed, his men both armed and numerous. "I was wondering when you'd show up."

* * *

 **A/N2** So, do I include Ellie in the mission or not? If you have an opinion, let me know in the comments.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N** Okay, 100% of the responses (all three of them, yay team!) wanted Ellie to be in on the action, so here she is.

* * *

" _So many witnesses."_

" _No rest for the wicked."_

" _Garbage in, garbage out."_

" _This is too easy."_

* * *

On the road…

"We shouldn't be doing this," said Ellie, staring out the window as the road flew by.

"Well, you're half right," said Chuck. He was concentrating on the road and the car and the wheel, since it was Ellie's car and he was driving, but she wouldn't let him flash.

"I guess that's true," said Ellie. " _I_ shouldn't be here either."

"Ha ha," said Chuck. "This is serious business, El. You could get hurt."

"I think we can agree on that," said Ellie, and Chuck knew he was in trouble. "So tell me, little brother, what was your first 'serious business'?"

Chuck tried to look for traps in the question, beyond the obvious ones, but he was too busy. "Casey told you, didn't he?"

"How could he?" asked Ellie. "He couldn't tell me how you met, any of you, but having heard about Bryce and the pictures and all of that, I can guess. They came to get it back, and found it in your head."

"Not exactly, no," said Chuck, reluctantly. Ellie was a doctor, _his_ doctor, and only the truth would do, even if it was pretty certain to get Casey into trouble. "Sarah met me first, figured I didn't know anything, and fell in love with me while she was doing it. Casey just came to kill me, but she wouldn't let him. While we were trying to escape we ended up on a helipad overlooking a hotel, and I had my first big flash."

' _Big' as opposed to what?_ Ellie filed that question away for another time. "Which was?"

"A bomb in the hotel," said Chuck, "And yes, we went to stop it."

"Why 'we'?" She didn't sound surprised.

"I had the layout of the hotel in my head. I knew who the target was, and where he would be. It would have taken them too long to figure out where they had to go."

"Mm-hmm. So you ran into the room with a couple of trained spies. Were you trained in any way?"

"Spy-trained? Hell, no," said Chuck. "But I was Nerd-Herd trained, which is what we needed. The bomb was computer-driven, and I used a porn virus to kill the computer."

 _Uh-huh._ "Anything else, Mr. Kettle?"

Chuck sighed. "No, Dr. Pot. But if you're gonna do this, we need a different name for you. I've put a lot of effort into keeping the Bartowski name out of the papers. We need a whole cover story."

Perhaps as a mute. She'd never been good at lying and didn't want to start. Well, that was his business now. Hopefully he could come up with a lie that allowed her to tell the truth. "You're the spy," she said tentatively.

"Sucks, doesn't it? You have no idea how much it hurt all those months. You may have hated hearing us say _it's complicated_ all the time but at least it was true." He puffed out a breath, staring out the window, watching the road pass around them. "Okay. Knowing what I know, and knowing Sarah and Casey the way I do, I think I have some ideas about what they've come up with. It'll be vague, but that's the good part. We'll just have to fill in the details. Tell me what you think…"

* * *

In the display room at Jean-Claude's mansion…

Sarah looked at all the guns that Jean-Claude's men weren't quite pointing their way. "Good evening, Jean-Claude. Shouldn't you be off setting up an alibi somewhere?" She set the vase back down on the pedestal to free up her hands. Just in case.

He seemed much less afraid of her this time. Private armies tend to do that. "Not at all, Miss Pink. As I said, nothing is happening tonight, certainly not the theft of a priceless artwork." He gazed upon them critically. "I must say, your previous attire was much more flattering. This seems a rather elaborate ruse."

Sarah didn't like filling out the role of 'Miss Pink'–being 'Agent Walker' was bad enough–but she was glad to be wearing the character right then. Agent Walker didn't mind getting her hands dirty, in fact that's why she'd been created, but Miss Pink had minions. "Not a ruse, exactly. A default technique, in the absence of more complete notes. Alas, I can no longer have a word with Miss Prince about them." _That damn Shaw!_

"Miss Prince knew to bring the real artifacts with her, to conclude our business amicably," said Jean-Claude, annoyed to be considered a note on some underling's desk. Something to be thrown away. "I find myself wondering if you do in fact have the original with you. Perhaps in your vehicle, left waiting by my garden wall, hmm?" He smirked at them. "My treasure, to be taken away with your own?" He gestured, and the guns came up.

Sarah put on an air of boredom. "A mere clerical error, I assure you. I would not tolerate such a thing from an underling, and my superiors are not as forgiving as I am."

"Your word of honor?" said Jean-Claude, amused.

Sarah smiled her 'Miss Pink' smile. "If I was going to betray you, you wouldn't even feel the knife going into your back, much less see it coming." She indicated the minions, who all took a step back.

Pride in a job well done was something Jean-Claude could understand. "Then you should have no problem with waiting as the men I sent to check your vehicle do their job."

"How many men?" said Casey, suddenly.

Jean-Claude ignored him. "Madam, control your dog."

"I am," said Sarah, looking over to Casey as if he was barely worth the time. "You must have a reason for the interruption, driver. Tell it to him."

Casey turned to her. "I want full credit."

Miss Pink laughed. "You shall have it." She turned to Jean-Claude. "See, Jean-Claude, the means of my control. How many men?"

"Six," said Jean-Claude, looking nervous in spite of his control of the situation. If only she would stop _smiling_ like that. "What credit?"

Something exploded, beyond the gardens, beyond the wall. Casey took a step forward at the sound and punched the nearest guard, taking his weapon as he fell. He took a step back, his gun aimed, one against a lot more than one. "The bounties, of course," said Sarah. "Normally we discourage open violence–"

"You did say 'weapons free'," said Casey.

"I did, didn't I?" Sarah wiggled her fingers dismissively. "My bad."

"' _Your bad_ '?" said Jean-Claude. "You just killed six of my men!"

"No," said Sarah. "You did."

"As you've killed yours." He raised an arm.

Sarah reached for the vase. "I suggest you change your mind. Do that and you'll never get this."

"You know what? I have changed my mind," said Jean-Claude. He lowered his arm. "Throw them both over the cliff. Let her masters send someone more polite."

"They won't send anyone–"

"I don't want to hear the sound of your voice anymore," said Jean-Claude.

Sarah looked at Casey, Casey looked at Sarah, and Jean-Claude watched them both with utter satisfaction.

The earpieces in both agents' heads crackled, Chuck's voice speaking soft, low, and very welcome into their ears. _"Flashbang in three, two..."_

As they both thought _one_ , something small and hard broke through the glass of one window, falling somewhere on the floor. Everyone started to look for it and didn't notice the prisoners shield their eyes.

The room went white, the sound of the explosion almost covering the sound of glass breaking as Chuck came into the room from the back. He tranqed the guards from the back as Casey and Sarah dealt with them in their own ways from the front. Blinded as they all were they weren't much opposition, except for one. The guy Casey knocked down got up again, taking a gun from a fallen guard and taking aim at Casey. Sarah, too far away to attack directly, took a page from Chuck's book and used her powerful kick to send the fake vase hurtling toward his head.

Chuck launched himself into the air and landed on the guy, not to save him but to catch the vase.

"What?" shouted Sarah, too caught up in her several different cover identities to know what words to use.

"That's what I want to know," said Jean-Claude, his gun at Casey's head. "Why go out of your way to save a worthless piece of glass?"

"Because it's not worthless," said Chuck. He looked over to the broken door and called, "Miss King?"

Ellie stepped into the room, walking calmly and confidently across the broken glass, stepping over the bodies in her way.

"You have something to say, Miss King?" asked Sarah, once more in character, before Ellie got too far into the room.

"Just that the vase is genuine, Miss Hyde," said Ellie. "When Miss Prince went dark, the asset Bale panicked, and sent the chip to be mounted on the real one rather than wait for the fake to be completed."

"Well," said Sarah, sounding only mildly surprised. "Thank you, Miss King, you may go now." She didn't wait for Ellie to leave. "Jean-Claude, it looks like we're back in business, unless you prefer for this be a lose-lose scenario." She nodded at Casey.

Jean-Claude looked at his vase, in some clumsy guard's gloved grip. "What do you propose?"

Sarah checked the room. A simple exchange was out of the question, with the smell of burning bridges in the air. "We will go to the door, with the vase. You will come to the door with my man, at which point we will make an exchange."

Jean-Claude considered the offer. "I accept."

"Guard," said Sarah to Chuck, and he circled around the floor toward the door with her.

Casey and Jean-Claude followed. "That's far enough," said Jean-Claude. "Send your man forward." He released his grip on Casey's collar.

Casey stepped away, as Chuck stepped forward, holding the vase with both hands. As they passed each other, Jean-Claude lunged, pushing Casey forward and grabbing Chuck's wrist. "Look at that," he said. "I have your man, my vase, and my gun. Sounds like a win-lose situation to me."

Chuck tossed the vase into the air and broke right, shouting "Run!"

Ellie, waiting right outside, reached into the room and grabbed Sarah and Casey, pulling them back. "Don't hit me," she said, before they could turn to do exactly that. "Don't hit me. Chuck's got a plan."

From inside the room they heard the sound of porcelain shattering. "I'll kill you!" shouted Jean-Claude.

Casey looked around the frame, seeing an empty room. "You two go," he said to Sarah. Obviously Ellie had to have her own car. "I'll get the chip and the moron."

"But the van…?"

"Claymores. The van's fine. Get going."

* * *

Out on the patio…

Chuck ran toward the railing at the edge of the cliff, grabbing the end of a coil of rope from a table as he passed it. Jean-Claude came out onto the patio and saw Chuck leap up onto the rail and jump off, the rope uncoiling noisily. He aimed at the rail where the rope was tied to the rail and fired. When the rope went taut, it snapped and fell. Jean-Claude went to the rail and looked down, watching the rope spin down to the rocks and surf so far below. "Good riddance."

* * *

On the other side of the inlet…

Casey pulled the van to a halt by the side of the road, where the tracker told him Chuck was. His partner emerged from the bushes and opened the door. "You're soaking wet," snapped Casey. "Get in the back." He reached down and turned up the heat back there.

Chuck got in the back. "Kind of hard to cliff dive and not get wet," he said. "You got the chip?"

Casey grunted an affirmative. "Hard on the vase, though."

"Who cares, it was fake," said Chuck, running his fingers through his hair. "I saw the real one listed in a manifest, and figured Jean-Claude would be expecting a switch."

"So you came riding to the rescue with your _sister_ in tow? Who's bright idea was that?"

"Hers," said Chuck, taking off the wet shirt. "She's a doctor."

Casey looked straight ahead, away from Chuck's shirtless torso and forward to an endless stream of days with Ellie in them. "Chuck me."

* * *

In Echo Park…

Ellie was waiting for them when the van drove up. "You'd better have it," she snapped at Casey, since he was the only one visible.

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder as Chuck opened the side door, and stepped out. The door hadn't even finished closing before Casey was driving away at high speed. "Is something wrong? John seems to be under a lot of stress lately," said Ellie. "Where's he going?"

"Castle," said Chuck. "To secure the chip and report to the General. Where's Sarah?"

"In your apartment. I'd be there, keeping her company, but she's scaring me."

 _Oh, boy._ "Don't worry, sis. I got your back." He started trudging forward to meet his fate.

"That's not the only thing you'd better have," said Ellie to his back. He waved at her without turning. She almost took a step forward, but ultimately fled back to the safety of her own place.

Chuck opened the door to his place. "Sarah?" he called. "Sweetie?"

"Cliff-diving, Chuck?" She was waiting for him in his favorite chair.

"The physics were sound," said Chuck. "It's just the experience which is terrifying, although not as terrifying as having someone shooting at you."

Sarah stood up. "Or as terrifying as hearing that you're cliff-diving for the very first time _with_ someone shooting at you."

"At the rope, technically, that's why it was there. I was over the edge by then."

"Not. Helping." She wrapped herself around him.

She was trembling. "Hey." He touched her back, gently. "I know what you need."

"What's that?" said Sarah into his shoulder.

"This," said Chuck, sinking to one knee, holding up her looped twist-tie. "Although I really have to get something better than a kitchen widget."

"I don't want anything." She made a fist, to feel it on her finger.

"I know, you're a romantic," Chuck said, standing, "But so am I, and I really want something in the scrapbook that we can tell our grandkids about."

She pulled him into her arms again, not trembling anymore. "Have to have kids first."

"Why, yes, soon-to-be-Mrs. Bartowski." Chuck lifted her in his arms. His bedroom was empty, and they had the place to themselves. "So we do."

* * *

 **A/N2** It's too early for kids but never too early to practice, right?

I really wanted to use Chuck's heroic dash and fall from Bale's window in my last S5 rewrite, but it didn't fit, so I'm glad to get it in here. I hated the way they merely escaped Bale, so this time the Piranha squished him, even if it was only off-screen.


	7. Introducing

**A/N** No Carmichael Industries here, so no embarrassing performance on stage. They'll have to go to SAFE™ for a different reason.

* * *

" _We shouldn't be doing this."_

" _The bounties, of course."_

" _Chuck's got a plan."_

" _So we do."_

* * *

In Castle…

General Beckman visibly gathered herself together on screen, as Casey fought to keep from shrinking into the seat he was standing behind. "Let me see if I've understood this story, Colonel," she said, in her archest, driest tone. The tone that could mean she was amused, or could mean hamburger, if she decided to turn him into some. "Agent Bartowski was ordered, by me, to remain out of the field pending mandated therapy. He decided, intelligently, to put this downtime to good use, using primarily electronic resources to eliminate a remote enemy asset while in the safety of his own home." She slid a piece of paper in front of her and adjusted her glasses, a purely theatrical gesture, since he'd just finished briefing her on these very topics. "In spite of this, he somehow found it necessary to travel, with a civilian, to a location where you and Agent Walker were engaged in a mission of your own. With the civilian in tow, he infiltrated the enemy compound, there to tackle an enemy combatant–"

"Who would have killed me," said Casey to the table top.

"While leaping to capture an enemy artifact containing sensitive information–"

"Agent Walker had launched it as a missile against the previously-mentioned combatant, unaware that Agent Bartowski had a plan that used it and the previously-mentioned civilian to deceive and distract the enemy."

"Really, Colonel, you're not helping," said Beckman. She made a show consulting her notes. "And lastly, he threw himself off a cliff. With the civilian watching." The fact that the previously-mentioned civilian was Chuck's own sister was left unremarked-upon, but Casey picked up on it anyway.

He pushed himself upright. "She insisted on being there, as Agent Bartowski's doctor," he said, attempting to salvage some dignity. He was willing to take the blame for his own screw-ups but not someone else's. "And she wasn't watching. Agent Walker and Ellie were on their way back to Ellie's car at that point, to return to Burbank while I retrieved the chip."

"While Agent Bartowski was flinging himself off a cliff." The General seemed to like saying that. "All according to a plan his sister was quite familiar with, since she briefed Agent Walker on it during their return to Burbank." The outcome of that briefing was unknown, Casey hadn't stayed around long enough to find out, but they could guess.

"While cliff- _diving_ , ma'am." A distinction Casey hoped would mean more to his commanding officer than he expected it would to his partner. "It's simple ballistics, as Agent Bartowski pointed out to me after I retrieved him. I asked him if he'd flashed and he said he didn't need to."

Beckman slid the paper to one side. "Has he ever done it before?" Such things might be in the CIA training curriculum, but somehow she doubted it.

Sarah hadn't had any heart attacks that Casey knew about, so… "Not to my knowledge, no."

"Then I doubt there was anything 'simple' about it." Aside from the running and the jumping. Clever of Agent Bartowski to set it up so that jumping off a cliff was the simple and obvious solution, to everyone _except_ the guy with the gun. Then all he had to do was just do it, no thinking or choosing involved.

Casey never got to see the cliff, except from the bottom. That looked bad enough. "No, ma'am. Bartowski said his pants were wet before he hit the water."

She scowled at him. "Is that a joke?"

Not one of his. Not funny enough. "You'd have to ask Agent Bartowski, ma'am. I'm simply reporting the nature of his comments at the time."

"Mm-hmm. Save it for a footnote, I'm sure there will be many, for a fiasco of this size."

"Fiasco, ma'am?" asked Casey. "We achieved multiple objectives simultaneously, with no loss of life."

"I caught the words 'civilian' and 'cliff' even if you did not, Colonel," said Beckman. "The fewer committees on Capitol Hill that I have to explain your reports to, the better." She slid another piece of paper in front of her. "Not to mention reports I received from the LA office. Apparently the police were called to your target's mansion, responding to reports of explosions and shots fired, and discovered a hoard of stolen artworks, many from other countries. The art world is understandably excited." She slid the art world and its excitement to join the first paper. "This is not what is meant by 'keeping a low profile'."

Casey took the hint, and kept his profile low. "No, ma'am."

Beckman took her glasses off. "As I see it, there's only one thing to be done."

Casey often shared his superior's vision. This might have been one of those times. "Two, ma'am."

Or maybe not. She looked at him funny. "Really, Colonel? What did you have in mind?"

* * *

In Echo Park…

The room was dark, and finally still.

Morgan was thankfully absent. Casey had made it to safety. The room's soundproofing had held up. A determined spy could have trained a laser on the Morgan Door and gotten a signal, which would have been interpreted as 'oh god' and many variations thereof, but nothing actionable.

The two bodies in the bed were pressed together as if they wanted nothing more from Eternity than to be pressed together. Even their feet were interleaved, cold-warm-cold-warm… _Their bodies pressed, back to front. Chuck felt her arm pressed against his own, her hand in his. His finger curled around hers._

Even the most determined spy wouldn't have heard the small sound that escaped from him, and she didn't, even pressed up against him as she was. She felt the warmth of him, holding her… _A wall at her back, protective, enfolding. Confining?_

Chuck felt Sarah stretch out a hand and let go, trailing his fingers across her skin as she stretched. _?_

Sarah's hand grew cold, lines of fire drawing themselves down her arm. _"Don't worry, Sarah," said Daniel Shaw from the driver's seat. Eve Shaw, sitting next to him, nodded. "We'll be home soon." She reached for Sarah's hand._ Sarah pulled her hand back, her fingers sliding under Chuck's once again. She wrapped them around her own with spasmodic intensity, fingers interleaved.

Chuck felt his finger being pushed down under the force of a will not his own. _The Bridge. Shaw. His trigger finger pushing down and red spots appeared._ "Ahh!" he shouted, sitting up in the bed.

Sarah woke up too, as one will when someone shouts in their ear. "Chuck," she said, half-pulled around as he pulled her hand up with him before letting it go. She sat up and put a hand on his chest as he panted harshly.

"I'm sorry, Sarah," said Chuck, reaching up to touch her hand while staring at his blanket-covered feet. "I didn't mean to do that."

"Didn't mean to do what?" she asked, knowing her man very well. "Have a bad dream, or wake me up so I could help you get through it?"

"Oh, ah…ha-ha, have the bad dream, obviously," said Chuck, flashing her a nervous smile. "If I had a bad dream and I didn't wake my girlfriend to do her girlfriend-ly duty, she'd probably kick my ass."

"No 'probably' about it," promised Sarah. If he'd been left to his own devices, she'd most likely have found him in the morning out in the living room, his fingers sore from playing some game all night. "No 'girlfriend-ly duty' about it either. I'm your fiancée, more wife than girlfriend, and helping you deal is not exactly a duty, definitely not a pleasure, and hardly a privilege. Your dream was a thing–"

"My thing."

" _Our_ thing," said Sarah. She hadn't dreamed about Eve Shaw for a long time, too many other bodies on the pile, but now she was back and _reaching for her._ Sarah leaned in to hold him, his heartbeat sounding in her ear. "I slept terribly before I met you."

"My–" No, not a pleasure. "Yeah."

"Yeah," said Sarah. "When I took my Red Test there was no one there for me. They didn't want anyone there, for any of us, so I really don't know what to say to you." She'd channeled Chuck to Jones, back in that Paris hotel room, but who could she channel to _Chuck_? "I know how killing Eve felt to me, but I'm not you. You've already shown how much you can love strangers and forgive enemies, something I would have a hard time doing, if ever." A fatal empathy, for someone. "I had to choose, and I chose Jones over him…"

"You think he would have killed her?"

"I know he would have killed her," said Sarah. "I'm pretty sure he wanted us to stop him."

Good word, 'stop'. "Suicide by spy?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Kind of hard on the spy."

"Spies," corrected Sarah. "You acted on my say-so."

"I _chose_ to act on your say-so," said Chuck. "No way I'm leaving you to take this on yourself."

"Okay, fine, you caught me," said Sarah, sinking back down on the bed and pulling him along with her. "I don't know why everyone says you're so dumb."

* * *

The next morning…

Chuck and Sarah stood in front of his neatly-made bed, fully dressed, pictures straightened, no evidence whatsoever of last night's shenanigans for Beckman to see when she called in, in five, four, three…

Chuck turned to look at Sarah. "Who says I'm dumb?"

Sarah burst out laughing just as the screen beeped, and she struggled to compose herself, silently vowing retribution.

* * *

Somewhere, on a highly-secure conference call…

"C, what is the status of Operation Bartowski?" asked A.

"No progress," said C. "I expected some action on any of a number of fronts, but nothing. This level of subtlety is unexpected."

"Be glad of that, C," said B. "We suffered a major setback last night, a courier and his package."

"Could Agent Bartowski and his team have been involved in that?" asked A.

"Unlikely," said B. "He and his team are all consummate professionals. Not even Shaw could blunt their edge. Last night, on the other hand, was a shambles, a herd of bulls in a very expensive china shop. One of the agents attempted to escape off Jean-Claude's balcony, probably with the chip. Jean-Claude acted very unprofessionally, costing us the chip and bringing official attention down upon himself. The body has yet to be recovered and probably never will be."

"Chicken feed," said E. "Last night one of our most important financial assets went dark, taken down by a computer attack of incredible complexity and skill."

"That engineer we recruited…?" said A.

"Wrong skill-set," said C. "Not to mention he's in DC, so far as we know analyzing the weaknesses of our Cipher component. I will of course secure a copy of that report once it's completed."

"Who else could have taken down our asset?"

"E, send me whatever you have," said C. "We'll analyze the attack pattern, comparing it to known operators."

"We don't have anything," snarled E. "This guy is good. We need to find him, and kill him."

"That's data by itself," said C. "How many hackers are so good they leave nothing behind?"

* * *

In DC…

Beckman noticed that both of her agents seemed to be in reasonably high spirits, as her screen lit. Chuck had his hands clasped together in front of him, and she could see the twist-tie still on his finger. Sarah's hands were not positioned to she could see anything. "Colonel Casey will not be joining this meeting. Last night's actions require…careful handling."

"Careful?" said Chuck. "Casey?"

"It's all in the context," said the General. "Speaking of context, let's discuss the nature of your actions against Roger Bale…"

* * *

In a darkened auditorium…

Casey stood in the back of the room, at home in the shadows, like most of the people there. Up on the stage, the latest presenters were making a hash of things. Crappy graphics, no style. They couldn't even handle the gizmos. They may have made good spies, but spies weren't the things people looked for at the Security and Firearms Exposition, and these guys hadn't learned that yet. No one in his right mind would take a chance on those losers.

Of course, that all depended on the context. The lights came up, and the losers walked off the stage to the pathetic clapping of the paid shills in the audience. Casey looked down to check the schedule, see who the next presenters were. He wasn't about to stand here all day and–

The lights went out. Casey instinctively ducked and shifted his position, feeling for a weapon that wasn't there. He saw targeting lights moving all over the people in the room, settling on no one in particular. Dark shapes rappelled down from the space above the stage, dropping at lightning speed to seize the space, projecting threat all over the room.

The lights came up, and the lead started her pitch. He barely listened to her spiel, already knowing half of it. Hopefully those losers in the front were listening and learning. She was perfect.

 _And doesn't_ that _suck._

* * *

 **A/N2** I've never tried to do two separate dream sequences in the same scene. This is definitely turning out to be the hardest story I've ever written. I hope you'll all help me get through it with some supportive commentary.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N** Making this up as I go along, mix-mastering events quite a bit. Hopefully it'll all make sense. Happy New Year.

* * *

" _Really, Colonel, you're not helping."_

" _I didn't mean to do that."_

" _He and his team are all consummate professionals."_

" _It's all in the context."_

* * *

In between presentations…

"So you're Gertrude Verbanski," said Casey, once he'd managed to get close enough to say anything to her without it being picked up by every Tom, Dick, and mike within earshot. She was mobbed, of course, in spite of all the flunkies and minions she had to keep off the riff-raff. The money-men saw a mega-babe, the professionals saw a dangerously competent mega-babe. _Why did she have to be here?_

He didn't normally go to conventions like SAFE. Too…commercial. Not enough weapons. But duty brought him to this one, so he had to ask, for the mission's sake. And since she was _here_ , he had to ask _her_. If she'd been using the name he knew her by, he never would have stayed long enough to get into this mess. At least the mob gave him time to think of something to say that didn't sound too… interested. Hopefully she'd blow off his piddly set of jobs in seconds and he'd be on his way, honor satisfied. Hopefully she wouldn't remember him.

"I am," said Miss Verbanski, handing him a card automatically, along with the brochure it was stapled to. "And you're John Casey."

Crap."No," said Casey, taking the brochure. "My alias just outlasted yours."

"So did your country," said Verbanski, handing off the rest of her materials to her minions as they stood around trying not to gawk at her strange behavior. "Now I'm free to engage in my own… pursuits." She _smiled_ at him.

"Can we talk business, please?" asked Casey desperately.

"I thought that's what we were doing," she replied, putting a hand gently on his arm. "Two old friends…"

"Old enemies," said Casey. He tried to pull his arm away, but she held on. "You took my gun."

Verbanski frowned at him. "You lost her to me, fair and square, and I keep her nice and safe, right in my office." She drew a finger down the length of his strong hands, and those nice long fingers. "Maybe you can come by sometime and visit."

 _Maybe I should bring Ellie by sometime and let her handle this._ Casey chuckled at the idea, and Gertrude smiled at him again. Then he imagined Ellie and her constant attempts to play the matchmaker for her brother. _God help me._ "Maybe I will," he lied. "At the moment I'm here on government business. I need to know your availability."

She put on a more professional attitude. "For what?"

Politics. Administrative leave. Bureaucracy. All the sorts of crap she'd gone into the private sector to escape. "That's need-to-know."

She looked amused, if a bit confused. "So you want to put us on retainer?"

Casey shook his head. "No books." That should do it.

She looked at him funny, but she wasn't walking away just yet. "So how do we get paid?"

 _Nuts._ "We'll figure something out."

* * *

In Echo Park…

"This is excellent news, Agent Bartowski," said General Beckman, after Chuck finished his report. "The Intersect has apparently increased your already formidable computer skills. I'll make sure your therapist is aware of this development. Make sure you keep your sister in the loop as well." She switched her attention to some of her notes. "This also gives me an idea for your next mission, especially with Col. Casey away on another task. Software designer Otto von Vogel is in LA, attempting to sell his decryption key, a program that would make all of our current security software useless."

Chuck looked interested. "You want me to make you some new security software, General?"

"No," said Beckman in surprise. "I want you, and Agent Walker, to infiltrate Vogel's party and obtain his code."

"But General, what good would that do?" asked Chuck. "He'll just run off another copy and sell that, unless he's selling the source code. It's not the source code, is it, 'cause that just wouldn't make any sense." Not without a bidding war.

Beckman looked at him like _he_ didn't make any sense. "I leave it up to you to find that out, Agent Bartowski. Just make sure all copies are either destroyed or in our hands. Meanwhile, I'll wave off the other team currently tracking Vogel and have them reassigned. They're a couple, just like you two. There's some business in Milan that a couple can look into."

"During fashion week, General?" asked Sarah.

"It's a good cover for spy work," said Chuck, thinking about it like a spy. She had mentioned it before. Once or twice. "High density, weak connectivity, dubious taste in clothing…" Did she really want to go to that?

"Another reason to keep Col. Casey local," said Beckman.

"I'm just wondering if Carina's taking any personal time off right now," said Sarah. "She likes to go there and feel sorry for the models."

"An excellent suggestion. I'll alert her people," said Beckman, making a note. "If she's there she can reach out to the other team, in case they need assistance."

"Um…" said Sarah.

"Agent Bartowski, don't forget, you are not to engage in any form of violence, and no flashing. Let Sarah handle that. You focus on the software."

"Absolutely, General."

"But…" said Sarah, as the screen went black. She turned to her fiancé. "I don't think she understands."

"I know she doesn't," said Chuck. He'd gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure Beckman didn't find out she had the Piranha on staff. Telling Casey would be risky enough.

* * *

Meanwhile, back at SAFE…

Casey marched into the con suite, a room with lots of food, drinks, and people chattering enthusiastically, intent on getting something to drink and getting out of there as quickly as he could. He could talk muzzle velocities all day, but there went his whole day, and he had work to do. Coolers full of sodas and bottled water sat against the wall, but there on the table were bowls of ice water, with bottles of juice, including pomegranate, his favorite. He was reaching for it when his hand collided with someone else's.

"Oh, Mr. Casey," said Alex McHugh. "I should have known I'd see you here." She took the bottle when Casey stood back politely, and poured cups for them both. "We must be the only two people here who drink this stuff."

Casey took one, grunting his thanks. "More for us, then." He tapped his plastic cup with hers. "How are things with you?"

"Good, good," said Alex, nodding. "Getting along. School's expensive, even with Mom paying for a lot of it. I'd love to work more hours, I could really use the tip money, but that cuts into my study time." She looked around the room. "I'm only here for the one day, but I really needed a break."

"It _is_ pretty relaxing."

She leaned close, confidingly. "I think Morgan wants me to move in with him, save money on housing,\\." She sighed. "But then I'd be too far from school."

 _Bartowski and Walker are engaged._ "That's too bad," said Casey, thing of all that Buy More money he never spent. "But you never know, that could be a blessing in disguise. You don't want to rush into those big decisions, you know?"

"I know, but–"

"Scuze, me, honey," said some guy, reaching around Alex from behind, one hand on her arm. "Let me just grab one of these jugs here." Alex turned to glare at him, but he wasn't looking anywhere near her face, so he missed it. "Forgot my morning dose of vitamin C…"Casey took a step forward, growling, but he was too late. A gloved hand grabbed the guy by the throat and dragged him away.

Gertrude Verbanski slammed the guy up against the nearest wall, everyone there scrambling to make some room. "I'm sure you think you're pretty clever," she said as loudly as if she were on stage, but she wasn't playing to this crowd. "But so am I, and I have over three hundred agents around the world. If I gave each of them a chunk of you–" she glanced down "–and I'm sure some of those bits would be pretty small–" she looked up again "–no one would even notice you were gone." She opened her hand. "Get lost, poser."

The guy fled the room, everyone helping him find the door with well-placed kicks and shoves.

Verbanski turned back to the two she'd been watching since she came into the room. "Sorry to steal your thunder, John."

"No problem," said Casey. "I'm sure it meant more coming from you."

Gertrude offered her hand to Alex. "Gertrude Verbanski, Verbanski Corp."

"Alex McHugh."

Gertrude smiled, squeezing Alex' hand once before letting go. "Well, Alex, I hope you don't mind my saying so, but you don't look like a typical client."

"Oh, I'm not," said Alex. "I'm studying criminal justice at UCLA. I've been observing some of the presentations, but mostly I'm just here for the firearms."

Verbanski looked at Casey and smiled a little bit. "Hmm. Like Father, like daughter?"

"Oh." Alex looked at Casey too, then down at the floor. "No," she said sadly. "Nothing like that. Mr. Casey works with my boyfriend. My father died before I was born." She put the cup down. "Excuse me, Mr. Casey, I have to go."

"Miss McHugh." Casey put his cup down too. "Alex…" He started after her, but Verbanski stopped him with a hand against his chest.

"Five, four, three, two, one," she said softly, and lowered her arm. "You'll thank me later."

By the time Casey reached the door, Alex was gone.

* * *

In the Buy More…

With a mission planned for that night and forbidden to flash in the meantime, Chuck went to work, where nothing ever happened, to wait behind the Nerd Herd desk while Sarah went down to Castle to get weapons to stock her new home with, as per the thirty-foot rule. Chuck had heard of it, of course, but since he wasn't classed appropriately and he didn't have much by way of furniture anyway, he'd sort of skipped it. Now that everyone in his life was in on his real job, and someone who _was_ classed appropriately would be using his apartment as her primary residence, it was time for an upgrade. By the time they got back from their mission tonight, assuming they _did_ get back from their mission tonight, the place would a habitable environment for people other than two bachelors.

Someone came in the front door, the first in quite a while, and Chuck looked up out of reflex. A man stood just inside the entrance, looking around, but it was the way he looked around that got Chuck's interest. He was slowly and systematically scanning the interior, noting the exits, the mirrors. Chuck dropped his gaze to the monitor in front of him and started rattling keys, until the man walked into one of the aisles and vanished. Chuck looked in the mirrors until he noticed Lester looking into them too, and urgently signaled him to come to the desk.

Eventually Lester sauntered over casually. "What can I do for you, Charles?"

"I need you and Jeff to keep an eye on the guy in aisle 4."

The light of mischief glowed in Lester's eyes, but he tried to hide it. "And why should we do this chore for you?" he asked, as Jeff strolled over.

Someday Morgan would forgive him, but Chuck doubted today would be that day. "Did your experience with the witch-queen of the Buy More teach you nothing?"

"Aisle 4, you say?" Lester looked over to his cohort. "Come, Jeffery, the world needs us once more."

"The world _might_ need you," stressed Chuck, but Lester didn't hear words like that, and they slid away from the desk, not looking at all obvious. Chuck entered another bogus install into the system and grabbed his bag, heading for the door as fast as he could go.

Three people walked in just before he got there. Two of them looked around, studying the interior, while the third did a quick scan for moving targets before settling on Chuck. A half-second too late he smiled. "Hi. We were supposed to meet someone here. You haven't seen anybody come into the store recently have you?"

Something behind Chuck went _thump!_ "Try the DVDs," he said. "Have a nice day."

* * *

 **A/N2** The Turners in Milan, with Carina? Yeah, that'll end well.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N** Tightening the focus. Casey's off somewhere, doing something.

* * *

" _You took my gun."_

" _I don't think she understands."_

" _Sorry to steal your thunder."_

" _The world_ might _need you."_

* * *

On the road that night…

"Feels kind of weird driving myself," said Chuck.

"Not as weird as having no backup," said Sarah. Funny, when it was just her and Casey at Jean-Claude's, she didn't feel so exposed. She'd worked solo for years before coming to Burbank, too. But Casey wasn't Chuck, and her first priority would always be to protect Chuck. "It's just us on this op, Chuck, so no taking unnecessary chances."

"Right. If I need you, I've done something wrong," said Chuck firmly. He smiled at her. "Except that I _do_ need you, and there's nothing wrong about that."

She smiled back, a woman, not a spy, but the spy came back pretty quickly. "Oh, that reminds me, we need these." She pulled a box out of the glove compartment and opened it, revealing two wedding rings. She gave him a stern look. "These are for the op. _The op only._ "

"Got it, got it," said Chuck as she removed his twist-tie and replaced it with the band. Like he would ever try to deny Ellie that photo album. "I'll book a wedding planner tomorrow."

" _I'll_ book the planner, sweetie," said Sarah. Her twist-tie followed, and both went into the box and then the glove compartment, safe and sound. "It's one of the biggest rackets for con artists out there." Not one that she'd ever been involved with, thank God. And her dad, for having _some_ scruples at least.

"Ellie would do it, if you asked."

"Ellie's role model is Honey Woodcombe," said Sarah. "You sure you want that?"

Chuck's hands began to sweat. "You…you pick the wedding planner, sweetie."

"I thought you'd see things my way. Turn here." 'Here' being the entrance to a long private driveway, with a mansion, cars, and lights all clustered at the far end. "Glasses." She handed him the special optics and he put them on without turning them on. He wasn't interested in the electrical systems of limousines.

Chuck glared at the valet from the window of Sarah's Porsche, and said, "Show me where." The valet did as directed and soon they were on the receiving line, being received. "Charles Carmichael, Carmichael Enterprises, and my wife Sarah."

Otto gave him a particularly German glare. "I have never heard of Carmichael Enterprises, and so I am sure your names are not on the guest list."

"I build my client list by word of mouth, Herr von Vogel," said Chuck, throwing in the honorific because guys like him usually thought they deserved it. "I don't advertise. In my line of work it doesn't pay."

Otto accepted this, making no move to have them expelled. "Und how did you find out about my little gathering?"

Chuck gave him a sly grin. "A fine cyber-security professional I'd be if I couldn't find out, eh, Herr von Vogel?"

Otto nodded. "Enjoy your time mit uns, Herr Carmichael. I hope we will have more time to speak together later." He waved them inside, and Chuck and Sarah lost no time moving in and scanning the environment. Chuck was much more interested in the electrical system inside the house, so he turned his optics on. The wiring in the walls glowed yellow against orange-tinted everything else. It all looked…ordinary.

"Must be a rented mansion," said Chuck, taking flutes of champagne for cover, and handing one to Sarah. "I don't see anything like the kind of electrical capacity he'd need if his servers were local."

"Which means?" asked Sarah, pretending to sip her drink. _Her_ optics were recorders. She looked around at the guests, to get what intel she could.

"Remote servers mean either a download or hardcopy on hand," translated Chuck into spy-ese. "Computer engineers are big on redundancy, so I'd expect both. I can plant a virus on his local connection that will migrate to the remote, while you look around for the stuff he's got on hand."

"The other team in Europe probably took care of the remote server already," said Sarah, looking around for places where materials could be secured. Otto had guards but none of them seemed to be clustered anywhere in particular, not even the stairs. Just a gate at the top. Odd. "Upstairs?"

"Probably," said Chuck. "You want to see if this old house has servants' stairs Otto doesn't know about?"

"Absolutely," said Sarah. Normally she'd want to take her time, mingle a bit, get guest's faces recorded, that sort of thing, but Chuck wasn't supposed to flash. His glasses would prevent that for now, but no mingling. "You know where they are already, don't you?"

"Woman, you wound me," said Chuck in dismay. He led the way into the back of the house. "Of course I do."

* * *

Closing time at SAFE…

"Okay, people, how'd we do?" asked Verbanski, like she did after every operation, even if it was just a public relations gig.

"Pretty well overall," said her lieutenant. "All of our promotional information distributed, a few potential clients reached out to us. A few recruits."

Someone snorted. "What's so funny?" asked Gertrude.

"This one guy who applied," said the snorter. "He was seen picking on some young lady later on in the hall. Got his ass handed to him."

"By who?" Verbanski was sure any of her men would have come to the woman's assistance.

"By the lady, " said someone else. "I don't think she even noticed us." He got a strange expression on his face. "She must have known him, though. Said something about him not taking his vitamin C that morning."

Gertrude looked very, very interested. "This lady. Describe her."

* * *

Otto's party…

Like many old mansions, there was a small flight of stairs for the servants to use, so they could do what they needed to do around the house without intruding on the residents. Chuck and Sarah went past two kitchens and a pantry to the small winding stair and quickly reached the upper level. They couldn't block the door, since they might need a quick exit, so Chuck left his flute of champagne balanced on the knob as an alarm, and they headed out to look for Otto's equipment.

In the occupied areas, Chuck waited while Sarah cleared every room. Most of them were guards' rooms, barracks-neat and full of weapons. The master suite was of course Otto's, with his computer readily available, because of course it was as secure as its owner could make it. Chuck sat down, his eyes beginning to water and his nose to sting, and got to work while Sarah started checking the suite for secure storage. He didn't expect it to be easy and it wasn't. Otto had set up his box with all sorts of biometrics, in addition to the usual electronic safeguards.

Fortunately he didn't have to log in, with the hardware right there in his Nerd Herder's hands. With a few tools and an array of precoded cards, Chuck swapped out the computer's connections with his own gimmicked versions. Encrypting the signal before it went out would do Otto no good when the signal already contained Chuck's bugs. Of course, Otto would know something was wrong when his computer started discovering all the new hardware, but by then it would be too late.

As he was screwing in the last panel he sneezed, realizing that his nose and eyes were itching. That was weird, he wasn't allergic to much. Just…what was that sound?

In the other room, Sarah had discovered a locked portable vault. She tried her electronic lockpick but the programming of the vault was too sophisticated. "Chuck," she called, softly. "I need your help with this password."

"Tiger," he said.

"It's numeric."

"No," said Chuck hastening into the room, but keeping an eye on the door to the one he'd just left. He fumbled for her hand, arm, shoulder, anything he could find. "Tiger."

A deep rumble preceded the big cat into the room, but not by much. The door out of this room was closed, the door to the closet was not. They went into the closet quickly, but not so quickly they would set off the creature's predatory instincts. It had to be used to being around people.

Sure enough, the cat pawed at the door they hid behind but didn't seem interested in breaking though the flimsy barrier. Its shadow went away, and they could hear the sound of the bed as something large jumped up into it. Sarah sighed. "Great."

* * *

At the Casa de Bartowski y Grimes…

Morgan patted his girlfriend's hand dry with a towel, before pulling over his box of medical supplies. It looked worse than it was, but it still looked pretty bad. "Who did this?" he asked.

"I did," said Alex. "Some people just don't take 'no' for an answer."

* * *

Otto's Party…

Otto von Vogel strolled through the mansion as if he owned the place, which he sort of did, for that week. He wasn't interested in the party except as a means of covering his transaction, but sometimes something happened that made the whole ordeal worthwhile. That man, Carmichael, claimed to have found out about this party on his own, and Otto wanted to know how he had managed to do that.

He'd yet to see that excessively tall figure anywhere in the allotted party spaces so far, and Otto was quick to imagine a different set of facts. His software was an opportunity for many and a threat to many more. He'd hoped a sudden change in location would lose some of those pursuers, or at least reveal them, and perhaps it had.

So he strolled. So he stopped. "Karl," he said to his security chief. "What is that door?"

"The kitchens, sir," said Karl, who knew the building inside and out. "We're not using them tonight. The door should be locked." It was.

Otto wondered if a cyber-security professional would have lock-picking skills. "I have never seen a kitchen," he said, the word doubly foreign to his tongue. "I will indulge myself tonight."

Karl shrugged and produced the keys, opening the door and preceding his employer through the opening, because that's what security personnel did. This hall was much plainer, meant to be used by servants, but not shabby or unkempt. Otto sniffed dismissively and went on. Up ahead he could hear voices. A vigorous discussion, becoming steadily more vigorous.

He opened the door and the noises became words. "–can't believe that you're taking her side on this," Carmichael was saying, very loudly, waving his arms around. Somehow the liquid in his glass didn't going flying everywhere. "Throwing good money after bad on some con woman. How hard can it be to plan a _wedding_ , for God's sake?"

"Like you would know," yelled the blonde, Sarah. " _I_ was the one who had to–"

"Heh-hem," grunted Otto loudly.

Chuck turned around quickly, spilling the champagne in his flute and looking embarrassed. "Oh, hi, Otto, I mean, Herr von Vogel. We–"

"You," snapped Sarah.

" _We_ weren't too loud, were we?" He gestured at the empty space around them. "We were hoping to avoid a spectacle. Her sister is–"

"Don't you dare go around blaming Ellie!"

"Well, _I'm_ not the one who wants a beach wedding, now am I?"

"Silence," said Otto, slapping a table. "I will have order." He glared at them both until they'd settled down. "Thank you for keeping this…unseemly conduct away from my other guests, Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael, but I believe it is time for you both to go, ja?"

Chuck nodded. "Ja-a-a- _choo_!" he exploded. He looked around, blinking furiously. "Is there a cat around here?"

Something out in the hall rumbled, and Otto turned away quickly. "Karl, remove them," he said, and hurried out the door. Karl, naturally, did as he was told, detailing some of his men to escort Chuck and Sarah to their car and see them off the grounds.

"Well that was a first," said Chuck.

"I wish," said Sarah unhappily.

"I was talking about the tiger," said Chuck. "What were you talking about?"

"Failure and half-finished missions." She got out her phone. "I'm calling Beckman. We need some serious animal control."

"As opposed to half-assed animal control?"

That brought Sarah out of her funk real quick. "Hey, nobody puts my man down, not even my man," she said, squeezing his leg. "You were brilliant, getting us out of that closet."

"Fine, it was brilliant," said Chuck in long-suffering tones. Then he smiled. "I don't think Otto's going to be too happy when he sees what we did to his shirt, though."

* * *

 **A/N2** Okay, the cat's out of the bag. And out of the bedroom.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N** According to Wikipedia, Sasha is a female tiger.

* * *

" _Feels kind of weird driving myself."_

" _Woman, you wound me."_

" _Tiger."_

" _Nobody puts my man down."_

* * *

"Sasha, you naughty girl," said Otto, waving his shredded and very smelly shirt around. His tiger had gotten into his closet again. Otto tossed the shirt at his man, who tossed it to some other man. "Get rid of this."

Some lackey or other was eventually tasked with the job of removing the rags. He dumped them in a bucket and headed for the back stairs. He hated that damn cat, the way she reeked. Which wasn't the way this shirt reeked. He lifted the bucket and took a sniff.

When they heard the body fall the security team rushed out into the hall. The man was still alive, but had fallen over unconscious. As they searched him for darts they began to feel light-headed themselves. At the last minute one of them was clever enough to turn the bucket over, with the shirt underneath.

"Sir, the scent," said Karl, when he received the report. "Your shirt was impregnated with some kind of knock-out drops."

Otto closed the door to Sasha's cage. He'd thought she was too docile. He went to his computer straightaway, well aware that a self-described cyber-security expert had had unguarded access to this level. "Bring me the safe." He brought his computer up out of hibernation as Karl brought in the small box. He typed in 84437, the numerical representation of 'tiger', opened it and pulled out his tracker. The screen showed his transponders still local, in Sasha's cage. He would assume the chips were still there as well. He hadn't noticed any missing crystals, and he wasn't about to stick his hand in a cage with a drugged tiger to find out.

"Sir, your computer," said Karl, who knew nothing about computers but knew what his boss' screen usually looked like.

Otto looked at the screen and saw messages about new hardware being found. Hardware! _Ach!_ He was clever, this Herr Carmichael, but Otto could be clever too. He lifted his tracker once more.

* * *

"No, Carina, I have no idea why the Turners did that," said Sarah into her phone.

"Why what happened?" asked Chuck.

"She stole the goods from the target, and the Turners double-crossed her and stole them from her. She's blaming me," said Sarah to Chuck, and then back to her phone, "But how could I, I've never met them. No I didn't recommend any such thing."

"You did bring her up with the General on the line," said Chuck, guessing at Carina's accusation.

"Fine, I'll the take the hit on that one," groused Sarah. "Next time we spar I'll let you win. But that wasn't because of the Turners, that was because of Milan…You think _Chuck_ can help? How?"

"Help with what?" asked Chuck, who loved to help.

"Help her find the Turners in a city you've never been to on a different continent," said Sarah. "She wants to send you pictures and stuff, as if that would help. No Carina, they've been spies for thirty years, they're not going to leave a forwarding address. Anything else, something useful, maybe?...What's that, a bar bill? You did hear me say 'useful', right? How many Manhattans?"

"Um…" said Chuck.

"Hold on a second, Carina, Chuck said 'um'…Because when Chuck says 'um' smart spies shut up and listen, that's why." Sarah lowered the phone. "Go ahead, sweetie."

"Manhattans," said Chuck, as the road moved by the windows, his mind moving with it. "Casey. Manhattans. Manhattans. Casey. _Bartending Today._ Booze snobs. Marasca cherries. Grand Ambassador hotel."

Sarah lifted her phone. "You get that? What do you mean, he sounds drugged? He's driving in LA and doing a better job on your mission than you are. That's right, traffic in LA. You bet your ass that's great. Now go and save the day." Sarah pocketed the phone. " _Bartending Today_?"

"I had to read something, and he subscribes," said Chuck. "It's the only thing on his shelves aside from gun magazines."

"Why am I not surprised?" said Sarah, as the car pulled into the lot at Chuck's–soon to be their–apartment complex. "Morgan's home. Hopefully he hasn't gotten into the cache."

"He knows better than that," said Chuck.

* * *

Inside the apartment…

"Hey, Chuck," said Morgan, the second they walked in. "You know you've got, like, six billion guns hidden in that new couch we got? They can't stay here, Chuck. Alex and I were hoping to use that couch, for…um…watching movies and stuff. We were gonna watch something romantic, like _Shoot 'Em Up_."

"Alex thinks that movie is romantic?" asked Chuck. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you know who her father is?" said Sarah, who didn't know the movie but figured with a title like that it probably wasn't supposed to be a romance.

"That must be it," said Chuck. "Sorry, buddy, but a lot's changed in the last couple of days, and we're going to have to rethink the living arrangements."

"What's changed?" asked Morgan. "Aside from the couch?"

"Sarah and I are engaged, for one thing," said Chuck. "So she'll be living here soon, and spies have a thing called the 30-Foot Rule."

"Does it involve lots and lots of guns?"

"Yeah. And I know you christened this place a 'bachelor pad' when we got it, but that was a long time ago."

"And I seem to remember you saying 'we can go up, we can go down, if we're lucky we can move forward, but we can't go back'." Morgan looked around their newly-furnished apartment. "It seems to me we're moving forward. Engaged, huh? Congrats." He looked at Sarah. "I think I can leave him in your hands now."

She smiled, pointing behind him. "It looks like you've got someone else to take care of."

Morgan turned. "Hey," he said, going to take her hand in his. "How does it feel?"

Alex flexed her fingers. "I told you it was worse than it looked."

"What happened?" asked Chuck.

"She went to see the weapons at SAFE," said Morgan. "It turned out it was unsafe."

"That's this weekend?" said Sarah, annoyed. "Damn, I wanted to go to that."

"You can ask Mr. Casey about it," said Alex. "He was there too, probably at the presentations."

"Was he?" asked Chuck, warily.

Alex nodded, oblivious. "I was only in the weapons display area, but I didn't see him there. Besides, I…left early."

"Not early enough for some people," said Chuck, gesturing toward her hand. "I'm guessing the other guy looks worse?"

Alex blushed, nodding. "Everybody applauded."

Morgan hugged her. "That's my girl. But why did you–?"

Someone knocked on the door.

"Are any of us expecting guests?" asked Chuck. When the answer came back a universal negative, he went quietly to the door and checked the peephole. A tiger was sniffing at the lens.

Okay. He backed away from the door. "Morgan, take Alex out the Morgan Door, now. I'll give you a five-count."

Morgan grabbed Alex' good hand and pulled her toward Chuck's bedroom door, a finger to his lips. Alex, remembering how she and Morgan met, followed without a word. By the time they got to the door a second finger was there, and by the time they were in the room closing the door a third had gone up. Four fingers were up when he unlatched the window, and on five they heard the front door open, so they went out.

* * *

Inside the casa de Bartowski y Grimes…

Otto von Vogel strode into the room like he owned it. Sasha came in too, and Chuck sneezed. "So, at least that was true, _ja_ , Herr Carmichael?" He aimed his tracker at Chuck's pants.

"Not my intention, Otto," said Chuck, a little breathless. He pulled out the cards he taken from Otto's computer. "I just wanted a sample of the code, so I could make a better lock after you released your new key. I want you to sell the damn thing." He sneezed again.

"So you drugged my poor Sasha merely to escape, eh, not to get the data chips in her collar? That is good, but not for you." He said to her handler, "Take her outside. You know how loud noises upset her." Karl drew his pistol.

"Now wait a minute, Otto," said Chuck, sneezing rapid-fire, even as the cat left the room. He turned away, fumbling for a box of tissues on the table. He clumsily knocked it onto the new couch, and dove after it.

* * *

Outside…

"What's going on?" asked Alex in a whisper.

"You remember how we met?" asked Morgan, as if either of them could ever forget. "I was there because Chuck asked me to be there."

Alex smiled, squeezing his hand. "I'm so glad you were."

"Yeah, me too," said Morgan. He kissed her lightly. "Anyway, this is sort of what he does. We have to get to my car."

"You're not just leaving them?" The tone of her voice made it not a question.

"I'm not leaving them, I'm protecting you," said Morgan. "He wants me to do it. He _told_ me to do it."

"I can protect myself."

A man in a dark suit came around the corner of the building and saw them. "Stop right there."

Alex kicked him in the face. He stayed on his feet, stunned, until Morgan hit him with a plant-pot and he dropped.

Something rumbled in the dark.

"What was that?" asked Alex in a whisper.

"Not Casey, that's for sure." They watched as something large and feline walked out of the potted garden and sniffed at the fallen man. "Oh god." Morgan felt around in his pockets for something to fight tigers with, and found his car keys. "Here." He pressed them into her hand. "My car's that way." He pointed and ran off in the other direction.

The tiger bounced after him with a growl.

"Morgan!" Alex followed them, to see Morgan running through the fountain. The tiger wasn't thrilled with that notion and went around, gaining Morgan a second or two to race down the tunnel on the far side of the complex. He widened that lead by pulling over some of the trash bins as he passed.

At the far end of the tunnel was a limo, like the kind a guy who drove around LA with a tiger might have. Morgan opened the front passenger door, climbed in, and dove over the seats into the back. The tiger followed him, but with its larger size wasn't diving anywhere. Morgan got out and closed the side door in the back just as Alex came up and closed the side door in the front.

"We did it!" said Morgan, coming around the front of the car as it rocked wildly. "We trapped the tiger! The Force is with us, like Luke and Leia!"

"Han and Leia," said Alex, backing away from the vehicle. "Luke was Leia's brother."

"Oh, right," said Morgan. "But I can't be Han, I'm Chewie. This is so confusing…" He dropped his head into his hands.

"Chewie was a sidekick. You're Han now, and you're blazingly lucky," said Alex. She grabbed him up in a fierce hug. "Don't ever do that again. You're already my hero, but I want a boyfriend."

"Miss McHugh?" said a voice out of the dark, confused and amused. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Miss Verbanski?" asked Alex, recognizing the older woman as she came into the light. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," said Verbanski, stepping away from the car, which was just beginning to settle down. "But I won't. I came here to see John Casey."

"How did you know he lived here?" asked Morgan.

Verbanski smiled, but didn't answer. "And this is the famous boyfriend?"

"This is Morgan," said Alex proudly.

"Who lives near John Casey, works with John Casey, and traps tigers in cars for fun."

Yeah, she'd seen that. "Believe me, it wasn't fun," said Morgan. "I think my pants were wet _before_ I ran through the fountain."

"Yet you did it," said Verbanski. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you don't know–" Crap. Chuck. "Sorry, gotta go." Morgan ran off into the tunnel.

"Because I don't know–?" said Gertrude.

"His friend, I think. In the house with the guy who brought the tiger," said Alex. "It's dangerous."

"And he runs toward it." Suddenly her phone rang, and she held up a finger as she pulled it out of a ready pocket. "Verbanski…He called? He's where? Okay, roll out Alpha team, let's see what this deal is worth." She put the phone away and reached into a pocket. "I have to go." She handed Alex a card. "My office. Tomorrow. Bring your boyfriend."

Alex took the card in numb fingers. "Yes, ma'am," she said automatically, even though she had work in the morning.

Verbanski smiled again. "Like father, like daughter."

Alex clutched the card so it wouldn't fall. "I never met my father."

"A Marine? Died in combat?" asked Verbanski. Alex nodded at the incredibly lucky guess. "Trust me, you're a chip off the old block."

* * *

Morgan ran up to the door of the apartment, seeing Chuck and Sarah standing there, one big guy on the ground and one old guy with his hands in the air. "Come on, Otto, surely you've heard of nose plugs. A smart guy like you should have seen that coming." Chuck fired, and Otto collapsed.

"Is he…?"

"No," said Chuck, "Just tranqed."

"You and Alex ought to get back in here, where it's safe," said Sarah. "There's a tiger outside we need to catch."

"Oh," said Morgan, "We caught it already. Somebody left a limo out front. I really hope it was this guy's." He pointed at Otto.

Chuck looked his friend over. Morgan seemed a bit damp, but otherwise uninjured. "How's Alex?"

"She's fine," said Morgan. "Talking to some lady by the limo, came here to see Casey."

"Speaking of, where _is_ Casey…?"

* * *

At an office building downtown…

"Karl Sneijder, John?" said Gertrude, as her team secured the site. "A nice high-profile target, big bounties. If this is you 'thinking of something', _I_ think we'll do great things together."

"Not me," said Casey. He pointed at the three loser schmucks he'd seen on the stage at SAFE, getting cut loose by her commandos. "Them. I was never here."

"They're your cover?" said Gertrude, laughing. "Fine. We'll be in touch."

Casey didn't like the sound of that. The last thing he wanted was Gertrude Verbanski of all people, trying to get in touch. With him. "How?"

She smiled. He hated it when she smiled. "You'll know."

* * *

 **A/N2** Morgan had nothing to prove to Alex or Casey, but I really like his heroic moment. So did Gertrude, it seems. Didn't see _that_ coming.


	11. Surprising

**A/N** Okay, story deadlines met, taxes done. Now back to the fun stuff. Lots of stuff to set up.

* * *

" _I'll the take the hit on that one_ _."_

" _Everybody applauded_ _."_

" _The Force is with us_ _."_

" _You'll know_ _."_

* * *

"We lost Sneijder."

"Was Bartowski involved _this_ time?" asked A tiredly.

"No," said C, annoyed with Bartowski and his team for not acting as he wanted them to. "Some new team took point, but Gertrude Verbanski is already claiming the bounties."

"She's extremely professional," said B. "We won't be getting him out of her custody."

"Beckman was clever, bringing her in," said A. "Whatever crumbs fall off the government's table, she'll be right there to snatch them up."

"And all the while, Bartowski is doing what?" asked C rhetorically. "Something huge, I'm sure."

"We lack data," said A. "Something happened in Paris, and we need to know what it was. If we have no resources on the ground, reach out to someone who does."

"I would recommend Mats Zorn," said B. "He's not one of ours, but he is notorious for digging up secrets some people don't want dug up."

"Including our own, if we give him that chance," snarled E.

"So?" said B. "Don't give him the chance. I'm sure Beckman would be glad of the opportunity to deal with him for us."

* * *

Speaking of General Beckman...

"I have enemies of the State to deal with, Colonel Casey," she said rather severely, from her position on the big monitor in Castle. "I have no time to be dealing with your personal romantic crises. I wasn't even aware that you _had_ personal romantic crises."

Casey thought back to Ilsa Trinchina, but she had never been all three at the same time. "Blame it on Bartowski, ma'am," he said. " _I_ do."

Agent Carmichael had been nowhere near SAFE. "You selected her, Colonel."

"You said you wanted the best, General."

"I said I wanted someone who could plausibly cover for the actions of your team." And it took an entire army to do it, too. Damn Shaw! And thank God none of this was coming out of her budget.

"Like I said, you wanted the best." The 'but don't tell Chuck I said so' went unspoken. "He's got his flaws, and God knows right now they're fault lines, but Chuck knows how to get the job done."

"Even his snafus are legendary," said Beckman, in some sort of agreement. "And how _is_ your second team doing?"

Casey sighed. "They're living down to that reputation, ma'am."

"That's good, I suppose, but not for them," said Beckman. "Try not to get them into trouble they can't be expected to get out of on their own." Because sometime soon this aspect of the mission would be over, and Casey's crew of losers would be on their own again.

"They've already survived their first job," said Casey. "That's one more than I expected them to."

"Will anyone accept that they could be the team behind the screw-up at Jean-Claude's mansion?"

"Not yet," said Casey. "However much of a screw-up it may have been, it was a successful mission. This team has to have one of those, first, and it has to be the right kind of screw-up."

"Get them there ASAP, Colonel, and then cut them loose," said Beckman. "Leo Dreyfus left for LA last night, and I don't want any more impediments to putting my finest team back in the field, when the time comes."

* * *

Later that morning, in a certain bed...

Sarah didn't even open her eyes. "Another bad dream?"

"Okay, a) it wasn't bad so much as weird," said Chuck, entirely too awake, "And b) how the hell can you know that when you just woke up?"

"I felt you wake up," said Sarah, "But this time you didn't sit up or anything, didn't try to get out of bed so you wouldn't–" she made air-quotes with two fingers of her free hand right in front of his face, like almost clawing his eyes out but not "– _disturb_ me."

 _Color me disturbed._ "Me trying to get out of bed without disturbing you disturbs you."

"Mm-hmm," said Sarah. "You weren't even breathing hard. And I knew that you would _of course_ have woken me up if it was anything bad, but you didn't, and a fine fiancée I would be if I wasn't prepared to accept your judgments about things." She lifted her head from his shoulder, finally opening her eyes. "Sometimes."

"Yes, Shaw was there," said Chuck instantly. "But I didn't, _we_ didn't kill him."

 _Uh-huh_. "So what did we do?"

"That's the weird part," said Chuck. "He was delivering an order of Zamibian food. I had some money in my pocket, and you...gave it to him."

Sarah wasn't buying it. "See, now this is what I mean by 'sometimes'."

"He...grabbed your hand, and jumped into the fountain, you know the way things can move in dreams, it was right behind him," said Chuck. "I grabbed your wrist and held on until he let go and fell into the water."

"Deep fountain," said Sarah, aiming for a light tone. She'd seen Shaw go over the wall, seen Chuck holding Agent Jones' wrist. Not a thing she could do to help. Not a thing she could do, period. "What's with the Zamibian food?"

"Probably that thing we saw on the news last night," said Chuck. "Their president is coming here and seeing a concert, or something. I don't remember, I was wiped out."

"I _know,_ " said Sarah harshly, not at all content with merely cuddling. "I blame the tiger." And an unexpectedly inconvenient cat allergy. He hadn't had his nose plugs in when the animal control people finally opened the limo door, and the reek had been intense.

"Works for me," said Chuck. He scanned the length of her barely-covered body, the part not under the blanket. "I feel much better now..."

"Do you?" cooed Sarah, leaning down.

"I do," breathed Chuck, lifting his head up.

The phone rang.

Sarah's hand immediately flashed to her thigh, but unfortunately it was a) under the blanket, and b) didn't have her knives strapped in place. "God- _dammit_ ," she snapped, snatching up the phone. " _What?_ " She puffed out a breath, and looked at the clock. "Fine. We'll be there." She rolled out of bed and started taking her clothes off.

Chuck lay back and enjoyed the show. "Dreyfus?" And soon, too. They didn't _have_ to spend hours getting lost in each other, they just liked to.

"What else?" said Sarah. She gestured at her combined nudity and verticality. "I'm not doing this for my health."

"No," said Chuck, getting out of bed too. "You're doing it for mine."

* * *

Verbanski Corporation headquarters...

Gertrude actually lived in the building, so it was a short commute to work. Once she'd had a genuine compound, but she'd lived there too, so it was still a short commute. With modern technology they could fit the entire operation, skill training included, inside a single building, in a much more accessible location. She still had the compound, for storage and the occasional war game. It wasn't the real thing, but it would do.

"Anything of interest?" she asked her aide as she approached her office.

Her aide was well aware of what interested his boss. "The bug you planted on Colonel Casey went through a Large Mart, an Underpants Etc., a couple of liquor stores, a gun shop, and a local Buy More, where it stayed for a few hours before travelling to a local landfill," he said, as he opened the door for her.

"So you're saying he twigged to it."

He went to get her coffee machine ready. "Unless he had actual business at the Buy More."

"John Casey?" said Gertrude in astonishment. "No, the rest I can understand, but dropping it at the Buy More is just rubbing our noses in it." She shook her head. "Round two to him. What about the bounty claims?"

"They've been made, no responses as yet," he said. "I expect those will be coming in later in the day. It could be a while before the dust settles."

"Not our concern," said Gertrude. "They can fight over him all they want after they've paid us." She thought about it a moment. "Let them know that Sneijder has offered to pay us as well."

"He has no funds." The government froze them all.

"True, but _they_ don't know that." Gertrude laughed. "Casey's team is probably a group of highly-trained commandoes, but they really looked like a bunch of desperate, hapless losers. I have to hand it to him, his cover is perfect."

"If it fooled us," said the aide diplomatically, "It should fool anybody."

"Exactly," said Gertrude, appreciating his tact. "As far as anyone on the outside knows, Sneijder should be perfectly capable of buying his freedom."

"You've never done that." That was why he liked working for her so much, even though others had offered him more. She was a mercenary that cared.

"There's always a first time," said Gertrude, with a wink to soothe his ruffled feathers. "Especially if they piss me off."

"Yes, ma'am." The aide didn't make a note, he was very good at remembering her orders. "We also received that call you were expecting, the appointment is in your calendar."

Her favorite task: recruitment. "Excellent," said Gertrude, checking the entry. "Round one may yet go to me."

* * *

Back in Echo Park...

Chuck came out of his room, fully dressed and ready to face a CIA psychiatrist. Which was good, because that's what he was planning on doing. To his surprise he saw Morgan just getting out of the shower. "Hey, bud, aren't you gonna be late?"

"Casey's covering for me this morning," said Morgan, from behind his door as he got dressed. "He may be all high and mighty out here, but he's also my lieutenant assistant manager, so...I guess that makes him pretty high and mighty everywhere. Alex and I have an appointment today."

"House hunting already?" asked Chuck.

"Hey, keep it down, will you, Chuck?" said Morgan, pulling open the door and making frantic shushing gestures. "Casey may say there are no bugs but he also says he doesn't mind me seeing Alex, you know what I mean?" He scanned the ceiling. "No hunting, no new apartment. That lady Alex was talking to last night wants to see us both today."

 _And Alex thinks they should go?_ Who was this lady? "Why both of you?" asked Chuck, horribly aware that he was looking for spy motivations behind probably innocent events. On the other hand, this was a lady who according to Alex had come to see Casey, which was suspicious right on the face of it.

"I don't know," said Morgan, going back into his room. If Alex thought they should go, he would go. "Maybe she has a tiger."

"Somehow I doubt that," said Chuck, as Sarah came out of the room, ready to go. "Well, good luck, whatever it is."

* * *

In the office with Leo Dreyfus, not sitting on a couch...

"Tell me about these dreams, Chuck," said the Doc, in his slow gravelly voice. He'd made sure the chairs his two clients sat in were far enough apart that they couldn't touch each other. They tried, and they failed, but they didn't seem to notice either one. They just sat and...squirmed.

"Okay," said Chuck, pulling on his jacket like it was too tight. "What do you want to know? The first dream wasn't even really mine–"

"It was mine, Doctor," said Sarah, shifting in her seat.

"You share dreams?" asked Leo.

"We shared the event," said Sarah, straightening her skirt. "I dreamed about it, and I guess my dream triggered his dream."

"Please, Sarah, don't say 'triggered'," asked Chuck, putting a hand to his head.

"Sorry, sweetie," said Sarah, reaching out to touch his arm as Leo chuckled.

"Do you 'share' all your dreams?" he asked, watching as Chuck touched the twist-tie on Sarah's hand before they separated again.

"No, Doc," said Chuck. "The second dream was all mine. It woke me up, and I guess that woke her up, but she wasn't having a dream of her own or anything, at least not a bad one."

"I used to have nothing but bad dreams," said Sarah. "Not anymore. Whenever I'm with you–" She suddenly seemed to remember Leo was in the room. "When I'm with Chuck, I...don't."

"Interesting," said Leo, making a note. "But about your dream, Chuck. Was it the same, the second time around?"

"No, Doc. It was pretty weird, actually. They didn't have much in common at all."

"You think so?"

"You think they do?" asked Chuck. "I haven't even told you what the dream was about."

"Well, that's the thing, Chuck, I think we all know what the dream was about," said Leo. "What you haven't told me are the contents of the dream. The details. And I think I can describe some of those, at least in general."

"You do?" asked Sarah.

"Certainly," said Leo. "I would expect Shaw as a threat, and you and Chuck acting together to end that threat."

"Shaw showed up at our door with a bag of Zamibian food, and Sarah and I...paid him," said Chuck. "In reverse. I had the money, and she gave it to him. It didn't end the threat, though. He grabbed Sarah's hand."

"Like he grabbed Agent Jones' hand?"

"Yeah," said Chuck. "He was really after Sarah, not Jones."

"Hmmm," hummed Dreyfus, making more notes. He looked up. "Why Zamibian food?"

"Uh, news reports, we think."

"I disagree, Chuck," said Dreyfus. "Out of all that's happened to you in the last few days, your mind selected a news item about Zamibia to process."

"You think it's meaningful?" asked Sarah.

"I think your partner has the Intersect, and hasn't been flashing," said Dreyfus. "I also think he was a very clever man before that." He looked at his other client. "Chuck, I'm going to give you a mission. I want you to investigate the Zamibian connection, but no flashing. No Intersect. I want to see what Chuck the man is capable of."

* * *

 **A/N2** I very much doubt that a real psychiatrist would move quite so quickly as he did in canon, but they had to get the story moving quickly.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N** Mostly taking from the Tooth this time. Not a lot from Frosted Tips to use here, but those parts were fun ones.

* * *

"You _selected her, Colonel."_

 _"Another bad dream?"_

 _"Maybe she has a tiger."_

" _I want to know what Chuck the man is made of_ _."_

* * *

" _You did what?"_ asked General Beckman, after Leo Dreyfus finished giving her the summary. The 'C' in CIA didn't stand for confidentiality, especially not for someone like Chuck.

"I gave him a mission," he said. "A non-standard treatment for a non-standard problem." Time for the details. "It's pretty much a given in my profession for subconscious concerns to manifest themselves in dreams, although I've never seen two people who affect each other's dream states the way these two claim to do."

" _I've never heard of a tandem shooting, either,"_ said Beckman.

Leo chuckled. "There is that. In Agent Walker's case it seems to be a matter mainly of regret, not only for Chuck but also for this woman Eve. Agent Jones' presence at the scene may ultimately be helpful in that regard…"

" _Sarah saved 'Eve Shaw' this time."_

"Exactly." And likely saved herself as well. "Ironic that Daniel Shaw's insane plot to kill Agent Walker and save his wife turned out completely opposite in the end." For a moment he considered voicing his suspicions about Sarah to the General.

" _Isn't 'insane plot' a little melodramatic, Leo?"_ Beckman's voice carried a hint of amusement. _"Do psychiatrists even use words like 'insane'?"_

"I'm not diagnosing him, I'm allowed," said Dreyfus, putting his suspicions away in the same non-professional box. "Chuck appears to be experiencing the same remorse, but in a unique way, owing to the joint nature of the event. Sarah is helping him greatly in dealing with that part of it."

"' _Suicide by spy'?"_ said Beckman.

"An interpretation of the event that takes some of the burden of guilt off them both." Unseen by Beckman, Leo shrugged. Agent Walker had been there, he had not, and her abilities to read people were legendary in the agency. "It might even be true. Like these side-effects, a piece of wholly unexpected good fortune."

" _What side-effects?"_ asked Beckman. _"His dreams?"_

"Forcing Chuck not to flash is forcing the Intersect to find alternative routes of expression," said Dreyfus, sure that the General could connect some dots on her own. "Putting him into therapy is putting him in a place where those alternative routes can be studied. What interested me most about the imagery was that Shaw was delivering Zamibian food."

" _So you gave Agent Carmichael a mission to dig into it?"_ Beckman sounded less than happy.

"He would anyway, the reports are pretty clear about that," said Leo, not entirely blind to the political ramifications that Beckman lived with daily. He didn't know much about Zamibia, but he wasn't about to turn down an opportunity for the psychiatric equivalent of a field exercise. "Telling him not to get involved would simply put us into an adversarial relationship which would undermine any attempt at therapeusis I might need to make."

" _If you're worried about making enemies, worry about Sarah."_

He did, almost certainly not for the same reasons, although 'unstable assassin' was probably high on both their lists. This mission wasn't just for Chuck. "You also mentioned some enhancement in his computer skills…"

Beckman sighed her acceptance. _"At least this way we can control him."_

"If by 'we' you mean Sarah and I, then yes," said Leo. "I'd rather you stayed in the shadows on this one, General."

" _I'd rather not have an international incident before tomorrow's breakfast,"_ said Beckman. _"Keep me in the loop."_

"Trust your team, General," said Leo confidently. "This will all work out fine."

" _I have no doubt of that, but it's the working_ in _that's the problem,"_ said Beckman. _"Good luck."_

* * *

At Verbanski Corp…

"And this is our combat simulation room," said Gertrude, as they entered the latest stop in her seduction, that is, the grand tour of her facilities. Alex had been quite taken with her office, as Gertrude expected, given what she'd learned about her at SAFE. The younger woman was mainly interested in her collection of weapons, captured from her various enemies, well, opponents, over the years.

The boyfriend, though, was proving a little harder to understand, and therefore to impress. He'd seemed a little overwhelmed by the activity in her outer office on the way in, like most of her clients, but on the way out after the initial interview he seemed…envious. Must be a management thing. On the other hand, he was a gamer, so she'd sent a minion on ahead while she walked her guests through the other stops on the tour. And now, here they were. "With laser-pulse rifles, sensory armor, and movable screens for a variety of computer generated tactical scenarios, it's the closest we can get to actual combat inside city limits." She let her tech guy take over, showing off all the bells and whistles, while she kept an eye on Alex. She was interested in the team's pulse-rifles, until she discovered that they were basically glorified flashlights, with sound cards.

"Wow," said Morgan, staring around him in awe. "It's like Laser Tag on steroids."

Fortunately there happened to be a spare set of equipment. "Bravo Team is just going in," said Gertrude. "Would you like to play?"

Morgan hefted the pulse rifle. "Can I be Red 5?"

"You can be Bravo 5," said Gertrude firmly, as Alex set a helmet on his head with a smile. "He's out sick today."

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the Piranha-cave, or lair, or whatever they're called…

"Okay," said Sarah, coming up behind Chuck and running her fingers through his hair. Watching the Piranha at work was unexpectedly hot-making. In his own element, he was at once sexy as hell and utterly oblivious. "What have you got for us so far?"

"Not much," said Chuck. "Just President Kuti's itinerary, flight plan, hotel and dining plans, and his entourage, dependents, and other hangers-on."

"So Kuti's clean?" Sarah sounded doubtful. There had to be something more, something Chuck could dig up. He looked so good, digging things up.

"As clean as the 'president' of a tiny nation ever is," said Chuck. Which wasn't 'very', but nothing that jumped out at him as Ring-related, or Shaw-related. "As much as it pains my hacker self to say it, we're going to have to leave the safety of my mom's basement and venture out into the real world." A performance of Beethoven, complete with his Ode to Joy, because what performance of Beethoven could be complete without his Ode to Joy? Chuck was tempted to do a search of the audience list, to see how many of them were music directors for other orchestras.

"We can't go yet, Chuck," said Sarah, as he rose from his chair. "This is a society gala." Gowns. _Tuxedoes._ She pushed him down the hall, towards the CIA outfitting computer, complete with holographic projection. "We have to get you…" she licked her lips "…dressed."

* * *

After the simulation…

Verbanski watched Bravo Team walk to their lockers, high-fiving each other and Morgan equally. "Did he get a single call sign wrong?"

"Not that I noticed, ma'am," said her aide.

Hmmm. Not that she'd noticed, either. "He did miss that last trap," added the aide.

"Yes, but he died so _well_ ," said Alex. Gertrude had to agree. When the trap was sprung, only Morgan was in a position to do anything about it, and he did the only thing he could do to save the rest of his team. He leapt on the attackers, taking every shot while his comrades brought their weapons to bear. Unless it's successful, a discovered ambush is a dead ambush. Not a perfect mission, but looking into Alex' face, Gertrude knew it was a complete win for Morgan.

* * *

Chuck came out of the locker room in Castle, pulling and tugging on his tuxedo for maximum elegance. "I told you we should have gone with the second one."

Sarah ran her hands up his arms, tugging on his tie. "Oh, I completely agreed."

"Then why did you make me try on the third one?"

"So I could take it off you," she said.

"Oh," said Chuck, transfixed by her expression. "Silly me."

"I thought so," said Sarah. "Stopping at the boxers was very…" she clenched her fists. "Hard."

"Yes," gasped Chuck. "Yes, I can see that."

Her nostrils flared. "We'd better go."

"Yes," said Chuck, smiling feebly. "We'd better. The Ode to Joy won't wait."

Sarah seized him by the arm and dragged him along. "The Ode to Joy is going to have to."

* * *

Back at Verbanski Corp…

The elevator opened to the sound of a _ding_ , and the sound of many voices, counting off a cadence. Alex looked through the clear walls at the sight of all the men and women going through the motions of a basic martial arts drill.

"You like what you see?" asked Gertrude, coming up next to her.

"Isn't that guy's hand supposed to be closed?" asked Alex, pointing. "I'm not sure if that's a block or a strike, but either way he's got to be doing something wrong."

Gertrude watched the man for a moment, before tapping on the glass. At the sound the instructor turned, and called a halt to the drill. His people waited at rest while he went to the door. Gertrude pointed out the rank and file of the man in question. "Keep an eye on him," she said. "Either he's having trouble with the basics, or he's picking up moves from that new instructor, and either way I want to know about it."

After the instructor went back into the room, Alex asked, "New instructor?"

"Different regions of the world have different fighting styles," said Gertrude. "While we can't have all our people current in everything, we do try to keep them current in styles where they will be stationed." Alex smiled, and Gertrude smiled back. She gestured to the room across the hall, and they turned and walked up to the wall. It was much quieter there, with everyone dressed in sweats with blue armbands, standing in a circle. Someone was talking, but between the people and the glass they couldn't make out any words. "Our Pacific Rim instructor is here giving demonstrations, looking for likely candidates. If the man you noticed is picking it up that quickly, we'll send him there and let him learn."

One of the men in the circle stepped forward. In just a few seconds men were dodging as his body rolled out of the circle again. More stepped forward, in twos and threes, but it didn't help. As the circle grew thinner they could see that the person wiping out all of Gertrude's mercs was both small and apparently female, judging from the hair.

Suddenly she came to a stop. "What the hell?" said Morgan. "That's Anna!"

"Yes," said Gertrude. "Anna Wu. She's been with us for almost a year now."

Alex watched the woman, moving with a dancer's grace and sticks in her hands. "You know her?"

"She's my ex," said Morgan. "Dumped me in Hawaii for a pastry chef. Stole my mojo. I was living in the Buy More, for God's sake."

"The Buy More?" asked Gertrude.

"The Buy More?" snarled Alex, glaring at the tiny woman. "She did that to you?"

Anna, looking around at her fallen opponents, chose that moment to ask, "Who's next?"

* * *

In an unnamed concert hall…

Chuck sat awkwardly in his chair, scanning the crowd. ""It looks like I'm overdressed for the occasion."

"Not from where I'm sitting," murmured Sarah.

"Eyes on Kuti," said Chuck, looking up at the box with the best view.

 _Shhh!_ said the woman next to Sarah.

"Who are the people with him?" she asked quietly.

"On the left is Mrs. Kuti–"

"No 'cutie' jokes, please," said Sarah.

"Wrong venue," said Chuck."The man on Kuti's right is kind of weird."

 _Shhh!_ said the woman again.

Sarah looked at her funny and pulled away as far as her seat would allow. "Weird how?"

"Weird that he's there," said Chuck. "His name is Martin Kowambe, some sort of biologist. Not even a minister."

"So what the Hell is he doing on the president's right hand?"

 _Shhh!_ said the woman again.

"You know what," said Sarah, smiling brightly at the annoying biddy. "You're right. We're going to go home and have sex. Enjoy the concert." She stood up with Chuck, laughing as they hastened up the aisle.

"You're evil, you know that?" said Chuck as they hit the lobby.

"Not yet I'm not," said Sarah, as they approached the guards at the base of the stairs leading to Kuti's box.

* * *

At the casa de Woodcombe, Ellie was on the phone. "No, Morgan, I'm pretty sure the medics there are quite capable of handling that sort of injury…Yes, fine, I'll look it over, but not tonight, I've got something special planned. Yes, fine, see you then." She pressed the red button with extra force, bat all that did was make it ring again.

This time it was someone she actually wanted to talk to, if only to find out how much time she had, so she hit 'accept'. "Hey Devon, did you find that set of DVDs you were looking for?" Ellie personally didn't think ER was 'the greatest show ever', but it was as good a reason as any to get him out of the house. "No…You don't need a referral…Devon, I've _seen_ that van, all right? It's a carbon monoxide factory…well tell him not to!" She hung up, brushing a hand lightly down the front of her shirt as she continued setting the table for her special dinner. "Some people shouldn't breed."

* * *

Upstairs, outside Kuti's box…

"Okay," said Chuck, " _Now_ you're evil."

"Yeah, okay, fine," said Sarah, ready to cop to just about anything by that point. "Let's just get this over with."

The security chief, warned by the men downstairs, had passed the message to the occupants of the box. "Do not trouble yourself, Mr. President," said a muffled voice. "I will take care of this matter."

Martin Kowambe stepped outside the curtain, looking first at Sarah and then at Chuck. "You are not who I expected," he said just as the orchestra played the first distinctive notes of the Fifth symphony, another staple. Dit-dit-dit-DAH!

Chuck flashed. _Beethoven's Fifth v for victory morse code Ring agent V scientist specializing in cellular regeneration techniques and organ harvesting…_ Kowambe saw Chuck's facial spasms and glared at the guards. "What is wrong with this man? You would let him near the president…?"

Chuck lashed out and hit him in the jaw, then fell to the ground, twitching. A tooth flew out of Kowambe's mouth, striking Sarah in the chest and sliding down into her cleavage. No one noticed, except her.

A tall man dressed in black parted the curtains. President Kuti. "What is happening here?" He saw his countryman holding his jaw and Chuck writhing on the floor. A guard spoke into his ear, and Kuti pointed at Chuck. "Remove this man! He is a danger to all around him." He glared at Sarah. "I will be in communication with your State Department about this."

Sarah kept a straight face as the guards restrained Chuck, and said the only thing she could say. "Yes, sir." _God-dammit!_

* * *

 **A/N2** All kinds of interruptus going on in these episodes. Really couldn't figure out a good ending point based on what I had.

When Beckman said 'good luck'. I was sooo tempted to have Dreyfus reply, 'where we're going, General, we don't use luck', except that it would have been out of character. But funny.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N** For those of you who wanted some kind of play-by-play on the Anna-Alex throwdown, here you go.

* * *

 _"_ _I gave him a mission_ _."_

 _"_ _We have to get you…dressed_ _."_

 _"_ _Enjoy the concert._ _"_

" _Remove this man!"_

* * *

That night, at Ellie's super-special dinner…

"Pregnant?"

"Yeah."

"Awesome!"

* * *

Verbanski Corp., after dark…

Gertrude sat in her office, doing all the little things that had gone undone with Morgan and Alex to see. The bounties on Sneijder were beginning to come in, and soon he would be making the rounds with all of his new friends. Her deal with Casey was already paying off handsomely, and what the hell would he do for an encore?

She stared at his gun, mounted across from her desk, as she so often did. What _would_ he do for an encore? What was his game? And how did Alex fit into it? She had to fit into it somehow, Gertrude was not a big believer in coincidence.

Except maybe for this afternoon. Gertrude could draw lines all over the map between Alex and John and Morgan and the Buy More, but that mess with Anna had 'snafu' written all over it. Did she have to say 'who's next?' at just that moment?

Gertrude had tried to stop Alex, she really had, but all that accomplished was a jammed finger keeping the door from hitting her in the face as Alex raced across the mat, arm cocked, about to get her ass handed to her by an armed and armored professional. Anna heard Alex coming, she was not subtle, and surely she had to be John's daughter from that alone. But then, surprise, she could do subtle after all. As Anna raised her elbow to block, Alex dropped her punch, ducking her head under Anna's blocking elbow and ramming the instructor in the belly. The dropped punch became a hand grab to Anna's ankle as Alex pulled up, dropping Anna to the floor as Alex stepped back, a bit dazed.

Gertrude noticed Anna noticing her, looking past her stumbling opponent to see her boss watching the whole thing. Two minutes later it was over, with Alex sprawled on the mat and Anna on her knees, breathing hard.

* * *

Later, in the women's locker room…

Anna winced, taking off her body armor. That kid had a hard head.

What a fiasco. Gertrude Verbanski herself had held the door open for a couple of stretcher bearers, but there was Morgan running across the mat, dropping to his knees next to…the other girl. "Hey," he said, gently stroking her face.

Anna couldn't remember Morgan ever stroking her face like that, not that she'd ever wanted him to. "Did I win?" she'd heard the _girl_ ask. _As if._ She'd gotten in a few hits, even managed to take Anna down to the mat, _again_ , but she did herself a lot of damage on Anna's defenses.

"No," said Morgan, "But it was a glorious loss." He moved to one side as the medics took over, checking for broken bones. He didn't even look at Anna.

Gertrude had done that, one of her many command responsibilities. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," she'd said. It wasn't true, not really, but what else could she have said? Rather than get personal she tried for a more professional attitude, evaluating the girl's performance for her boss. "She's fast, mean, and fights dirty–"

"All fine things," said Gertrude. "She did better than all of Blue Squad." The members of which had become an equal-opportunity cheering section during the fight, but with the arrival of the boss on scene had apparently decided the demo was over and left the room.

"But she let her anger do the fighting. Plus I know her style and she didn't know mine, so, I win."

Anna could feel her boss watching her watch Morgan watching over Alex as they took her out of the room, but all Miss Verbanski said was, "I suppose you could say that."

God- _dammit!_

Oh, and then the icing on the cake, Morgan ducking back to the open door. "Hey, Anna, you look good." He'd run off without waiting for her to say anything.

"What does it say about me that I want him back, now?" she'd said to the room.

"It says, time for you to go back to the Rim," said Gertrude. "You wanted him to make a life without you in it and you succeeded. Congratulations."

She'd forgotten her boss was right there behind her. God- _dammit!_ Anna slammed the locker door. Time to blow this pineapple stand.

* * *

Dr. Dreyfus had a few patients in the population of the CIA facility, enough to cover his activities with one client in particular. That client, however, wasn't a patient, and shouldn't have been checked in at all. "Good evening, Chuck," he said, entering Chuck's room. "At least I hope it is, just as I'm hoping this is a clever plan to meet with me under cover."

A small twitchy man stuck his head in the room. "What's going on in here, doc?" he asked, with a small snort. "Something–" his face twisted uncontrollably "–sexual?"

"No, Lewis," said Dreyfus. He closed the door, forcing the little man to back out. "You'll excuse us." Dreyfus turned back to his team, his clients, and nodded at Agent Walker, standing by the bed. "You're not supposed to be here either."

She shrugged. "They did try to keep me out."

Psychiatrists were like spies in some respects. He'd noticed some of the usual attendants were missing. "I'll leave word at the door for the future. We really can't afford to be understaffed. Lewis–or as he prefers to be called, Merlin–is the mildest of them."

He seemed pretty mild, but Sarah had met lots of spies who seemed mild. "Sounds good."

"So, Chuck? How's the mission going?"

"It's going great, Doc, I mean, aside from the shackles." Chuck rattled the chains holding him to the bed.

"My apologies, but appearances must be maintained," said Dreyfus. "You caused an international incident. The President will have to apologize tomorrow, as soon as they coach him in Zamibian."

"It's a tricky language," said Sarah. "Lots of clicks."

"None of us wants to hear the President try to speak Zamibian, Chuck, for any reason," said Leo. "So believe me when I say we all hope there was more to tonight's incident than your dislike of the man's dental work."

"Actually, Doc, that's exactly what I disliked." Sarah reached inside her dress and pulled out Kowambe's tooth. "We'll just get this analyzed, and Kuti will have to learn English."

"He already knows English, Chuck," said Sarah.

"I know he does, Sarah. I was just sayin'," said Chuck, laughing weakly. He rattled the cuff again. "Can someone get this off of me, please?"

* * *

"We have a mission for your little team, Colonel," said Beckman. "We discovered a new Ring cell after a suspicious transfer of funds."

He couldn't have heard that right. "You want these guys to go after the Ring, General?"

"No," said the General shortly. "We only discovered the cell because of a transfer of funds into an account we were already watching, and that's the target of your team's next mission. This man…" An image took over the screen. "Mats Zorn."

 _That's more like it._ "Isn't he always on the move?" asked Casey.

"Correct, and right now he's moving toward you," said Beckman. "We heard about him sniffing around in Paris but only in time to catch his mole. Whatever information the mole gave him is in his possession, but if he gets to LA safely he can transmit that data anywhere in the world."

"Don't worry, General," said Casey. "We can handle it." One phone call, that's all it would take. Not even two. Maybe two, you can never have too much overkill. Still, one annoying little information merchant, how hard could it be?

* * *

Arriving at the scene…

Bravo One looked at his men, still one down with the absence of Bravo Five. "All right, boys," he said, "Time to earn our pay."

* * *

Inside the CIA Psychiatric Facility…

Two henchmen dressed as orderlies dragged their victim into the treatment room and threw him into the chair. Martin Kowambe strolled in, wearing a white lab coat over his suit. "What's going on, Doc?" asked the victim. He snorted. "Something…sexual?"

Kowambe glared at the little twitchy man. "Where is Bartowski?"

"You gave us a room number," said a henchman. "He was the only one there."

"Kill him," said Kowambe. "And find me Bartowski."

* * *

The doors opened, and Bravo One and his squad filed out in good order to secure their objective. The target environment was a madhouse of struggling figures, so no one noticed them as they moved into position.

* * *

"Spies!" shouted Lewis, looking to the door, "Attack!"

The henchmen looked up, but no one was there at this time of night. Lewis took advantage of the distraction to run away. They followed, not worried about interference because no one was around at this time of–

Chuck and Sarah were kneeling in the room, tranq guns ready as Lewis ran past. Both thugs fell with multiple darts in them. "Damn," drawled Merlin, as they fell.

Kowambe appeared in the doorway and Chuck shot him too. When he fell his face hit the floor, and something tooth-like fell out of his mouth.

"Hey, look, Sarah," he said, going over to pick it up. He peeled back Kowambe's lip to see the second gap. "It was exactly where I thought, just on the other side of his mouth." He stood up. looking confused. "I wonder how that happened?"

Lewis' face spasmed as he nodded. "So does Merlin, Chuck. So does Merlin."

* * *

When all his men acknowledged they were in position Bravo One gave the order. "Fire!"

His men leaped up and sprayed the area with their weapons, flashing lights with the best sound effects money could buy. The struggling figures stopped. "Cease Fire. You!" he shouted, pointing at Morgan, "What the hell is all this crap?"

"Oh, ah, well, sir," said Morgan, pointing to the crowd, "This is the crowd of fans that have been waiting outside all week for the new release of _Spy Attack_."

"Corporate only sent us six copies," said some other guy in a manager's uniform.

"You guys are doing all this damage over _Spy Attack_?" asked Bravo One in disbelief. "Everybody knows that game sucks! The gameplay is substandard, the music is too loud, and the dialog isn't realistic. Spend your money on _Rainbow Ten_."

"Corporate shill!" shouted someone in the crowd.

"Uh, One, this is Six, I see a dozen copies of _LZ 20: Locked and Loaded_ right on that shelf over there, and that one got better reviews than R10 and _Spy Attack_ combined." A couple of people in the crowd cheered.

"Yeah, well, when you lead this company you can choose the games, Six," said One. "Until then, you can just shut the–"

"Now, now," said Morgan, "This is America, sir." He turned to face the crowd. "How many for LZ20?" A bunch of hands went up. "How many for _Rainbow Ten_?" Not so many hands went up.

"That's just 'cause none of you yahoos know how to play a real game," said One.

"I smell blood in the water," said Jeff.

"Greenshirts!" yelled Morgan. "I want screens and controllers for twenty, on the double. You guys, it's put up or shut up time, against some real commandoes. Do you guys got the guts?"

The crowd roared _YEAH!_ Big Mike asked Morgan, "What the hell are you doing? This ain't gonna get any games sold."

"Where do you think the Hollywood Buy More sent all its copies of R10, to make room for _Spy Attack_?" said Morgan. "We've got plenty. We'll charge these guys an entry fee, and then 'give' them the game, signed by real shooters. Plus, it should sell out the junk food aisle real quick. Send somebody over to Large Mart to get more, triple the prices, and don't forget to put those six copies of _Spy Attack_ we did get into that guy's bag, when no one's looking." He pointed at Bravo One.

"There's more than one way to handle a riot," said Mike happily. "I was about to break out my disco stick, but this is even better."

* * *

On the roof of a building downtown…

Gertrude Verbanski looked out from the protective circle of Casey's arms as the helicopter she'd been standing next to just a minute before suddenly exploded. A random shot had holed a fuel tank, the fuel had spilled out and caught fire. She was blind and choking in an inferno, until John had pushed through the smoke and fumes to get her and carry her off the platform. Shrapnel flew out everywhere, mostly over the heads of her team. "We are _not_ going to take the blame for this, John," she snapped.

John coughed a little. Gertrude's men had Zorn. One of his own losers was staring in horror at the target's briefcase, which had caught a metal fragment headed for his chest. He even shrieked like a little girl. This would do. "I wouldn't ask you to."

* * *

 **A/N2** Trying to combine Tooth, Frosted Tips, Cubic Z, and a little bit from Anniversary. All of which had conflicts that don't exist in this revision.

I know nothing at all about video games. I just made up the names.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N** The first part seems to be coming to an end.

* * *

 _"She's fast, mean, and fights dirty."_

 _"_ _None of us wants to hear the President try to speak Zamibian_ _."_

 _"_ _Corporate shill!_ _"_

" _I wouldn't ask you to."_

* * *

"Where have _you_ been?" asked Chuck, as Morgan dragged himself through the doorway at some ungodly hour of the morning, his shirt untucked, his hair mussed, and most important, his manager's vest unbuttoned. Sarah was sleeping in, lucky her, since Shaw had gone and recommended the Double O be shut down and now everyone was considering it, leaving her without a cover job. On the other hand, she would have the incredible joy of briefing the General about their mission by herself.

"Riot at the Buy More," said the other man dully, wincing at the dull thud as he dropped his bag by the door. Even the tiniest sounds bothered him.

Right, there was that game thing yesterday. "You had a riot at the Buy More?"

"Almost," said Morgan, shutting the door. "I brought in Bravo Team from Verbanski Corp., paid them with _Spy Attack,_ and put them up against the rioters on _Rainbow Ten_. They didn't even _start_ to lose until after three in the morning."

Chuck had no problem following the explanation. The parts that confused him also concerned him a little, but he didn't let that show on his face. _What team from who?_ "So you're saying there wasn't a riot in the Buy More."

Morgan bent all the way down to grab the strap to his bag and then stood all the way back up. "This surprises you?"

"Not with you in charge, buddy." Chuck laughed. "If only all wars were fought that way."

"They should put me in charge," said Morgan, tiredly. _Just not today._ He walked off to his bedroom, dragging the bag behind him. "I'd ask you how your night went but I'm afraid you might answer me."

"Sorry, buddy, classified."

"Thank God."

* * *

Chuck headed in to the Buy More, pretty sure that the place would have more issues than usual today, after the night Morgan described and Morgan himself catching up on his sleep. When he got in the front door he saw Casey looking over the mess. Cheese ball boxes and soda bottles littered every available surface, while chips and popcorn were scattered all over the floor. The display cases were in the wrong places, their contents scattered about. "What the hell happened here, Bartowski? The place looks like a war zone."

"You're not too far off," said Chuck, putting his bag behind the Nerd Herd desk. "Apparently Morgan decided to challenge some Verbanski Corp. mercenaries to a game of Rainbow Ten against all comers, and I guess they won."

"Of course they won, moron," growled Casey, "Gertrude only hires the best. What I'd like to know is how does a low-life like Morgan Grimes have Bravo Team on speed-dial?"

"How'd you know it was Bravo Team?" asked Chuck suspiciously. He'd been thinking about the same question all the way in, and while he thought he'd traced it back to tiger night, the trail ran cold with Alex and he wasn't going to make Casey worry unnecessarily. He was a bit of a worrier about some things. It wasn't pretty. But... _Gertrude?_ If the woman on tiger night was Verbanski, and Casey was calling her Gertrude, that would go a long way toward explaining what she was doing there.

"They weren't at the action site last night, dumbass," said Casey. "Figured they had to be somewhere."

"What action site?" An action site with Gertrude? More likely an action site with Verbanski Corp. What had Casey been doing while they were sidelined, and how did Alex fit into it?

" _My_ action site," growled Casey. Didn't Bartowski watch the news? While there were a lot of things he could imagine them doing, or rather one thing a lot of times, Casey couldn't see them behaving so unprofessionally as to not track current events. "While you've been lollygagging around talking to shrinks, some of us have been working for a living. How's that going, by the way?"

"Good, good," said Chuck, logging in. "The doc gave me and Sarah a mission."

 _A mission?_ While he was herding the Three Amigos? "I thought you were in therapy."

Chuck shrugged, checking the alerts. Lots of perimeter warnings thanks to Morgan keeping the store open after hours. "He didn't seem too concerned about that, said Sarah was the only real therapy I needed…"He deleted the alerts, and the footage from the HT room, sight unseen.

Casey grunted. "Could'a told him that."

"But I think he's interested in the thing, you know," said Chuck, looking around for any spies or very large listening devices within earshot. Last night would have been a perfect opportunity for enemy agents to plant something. He activated the signal jammer, just in case. "He's interested in how it works with my dreams. I expect we'll be seeing him a while yet, just for that."

Casey knew all about bad dreams. He still had nightmares from Ellie's interrogation. He tried to imagine that multiplied by the Intersect, and then tried not to. "What kind of dreams?"

"Shaw again, this time delivering Zamibian takeout."

Casey tried to imagine anything that Shaw might have done or been able to do, that would have earned him a place in an Intersect dream, and came up empty. "You really think Shaw could be that bad, Bartowski?"

Chuck shook his head. "The clue wasn't Shaw, it was the Zamibian food, that's what the doc wanted us to check out, and he was right. There was a Ring connection to Zamibia, but I had to dream it to see it. Apparently if I don't flash, the Intersect finds other outlets, but they're less reliable."

Less reliable than the Intersect. _Terrific._ "Please tell me you're allowed to flash now."

"That's up to the doc," said Chuck. "I did flash, once, and punched the bad guy on the wrong side of his face. Still not sure how that happened." He flexed his hand, remembering the feel of the impact. "Not sure I want to do any flashing anymore."

 _Weapons malfunction, can't have that._ "You'll figure it out," said Casey.

"I hope so." He turned in his chair, looking over the devastation. Less than a full-scale riot would have caused, but still, a lot for just them. And Jeff's boob-cam had to be out there somewhere. "Until then..."

"Don't worry your pretty little head about it, Bartowski," said Casey. "I already called for backup." He turned as the door behind him swung open, letting in three total strangers wearing greenshirt uniforms. "All right you three, time to pay the piper."

* * *

Back at the casa de Grimes y Walker (since Bartowski wasn't home)…

"I'm very glad to have this opportunity to talk to you alone, Agent Walker," said General Beckman.

"Begging the General's pardon," said Sarah, "But just because Chuck isn't here doesn't mean I'm alone."

"Understood," said Beckman, "It's expected you will share this briefing with Agent Bartowski, but we leave it to your discretion just how much and in what fashion you share it. He was right about Martin Kowambe, his organ harvesting and illegal experiments on genetic manipulation. However, we find troubling the fact that it took two tries, the second one accidental, to obtain the tooth with the information in it."

"Yes, ma'am," said Sarah. "So did Chuck."

"Oh," said Beckman. "Furthermore, we suspect that Kowambe had come to LA to transfer this information to the Ring. While the capture of the data itself was of paramount importance, I am concerned that the Ring contact was not also captured. This operation, while a credit to any agent, was nonetheless far below Agent Bartowski's standard."

"Yes, ma'am," said Sarah. "Chuck thought so too. I believe if you look in the footnotes to his report you'll find an apology."

"Oh," said Beckman. "I'll have to check, I tend to avoid footnotes. Moving on, while it is up to Dr. Dreyfus whether or not Chuck is to be returned to active duty status, I have to say that I would prefer he keep the flashing to a minimum, especially on the skill sets, until we can get a handle on why they seemed to fail in this case."

"Yes, ma'am," said Sarah. "That was Chuck's intention as well."

"Oh." Beckman sat and looked at Sarah calmly for a second. "Ellie?"

"We're hoping that, as a trained neurologist who's already been read in, she'll be given a more active role in determining the cause of the failure in this case."

Beckman tried to cut in. "And Doctor-"

"Dreyfus should be kept in the loop as a consulting partner with Ellie, yes," finished Sarah with a firm nod.

"Are we finished?" asked Beckman.

"I don't know," said Sarah. "It's your meeting."

Beckman reached out and cut the connection.

* * *

On a secure conference call…

"Bartowski finally surfaced."

"Good," said A.

"No, not good," said C. "As expected he ignored all the low-hanging fruit and waited for a big fish. Somehow he twigged to V and got to him before we could."

"The data?" asked E.

"I'm talking about the data," said C. "I couldn't care less about V, but the data is vital to phase three."

"Vital but not irreplaceable," said B. "It would be unprofessional not to have backups. The real problem is that this setback makes the Russian more important, and he'll surely know that."

"He wouldn't come on board before," snapped E. "What makes you think he'll join us now?"

"Nothing," said B evenly. "Given the status quo, he has no reason to do so."

"Then let's change things up," said C. "Offer him a status quid pro quo, if you know what I mean."

"Clarify," said A.

"Bartowski," said C. "Offer him up to Bartowski. He'll join us."

"And if he doesn't?" asked A. "He's neutral at the moment. We don't need him actively against us."

"We don't need him at all," said C. "Just his tech, his empire was always a frill. At the very least, Bartowski can give us an opening to take what we need. At best, they destroy each other and we take it all."

* * *

At the Buy More...

"Afternoon, Chuck."

The tone was polite, respectful. The speaker wore the suit, correctly. The tie was tied, the hair was brushed, the eyes were focused. "Jeff?" asked Chuck.

"It's me, Chuck," said Jeff with a smile. "I'm here for my shift. There are a couple of Macs in the cage with my name on them. It's in permanent marker but I think I can get that off."

"Yeah, uh, Jeff, you do that," said Chuck, as he saw Sarah come through the door. Time to go see Dr. Dreyfus. Possibly more than he thought. "Maybe watch the desk. Morgan's been out all day, Casey and I have been covering for him."

"Sure, Chuck. Glad to do it," said Jeff. "Just let me put my salad in the refrigerator." He walked off, quick and purposeful.

Sarah pulled his head around to look at her, and gave them both some much-needed we-haven't-PDA'd-for-hours PDA. "Did you see that?" he asked her.

"I did," she said.

"Did it look like Jeff to you?" He sounded nervous.

Today was not a day to be seeing things. "It did," said Sarah, taking his arm. "You are fine. Perfectly fine. Trust me, Chuck."

* * *

Casey got to the range late. Gertrude had already made a large and ragged hole in her target's heart. "Sorry," he said, watching it come in from way back there.

"You'll make it up to me," she said.

"I will." He handed her an envelope, setting out his gear as she opened it.

"That is a lot of zeroes," she murmured.

"Funny, the Three Amigos said the same thing when I handed them their share." He slid home the magazine and racked the first round.

She put the check carefully away. "Were they really as bad as they seemed?"

"A gentleman never shoots and tells," said Casey. He sent a target waaaayyyyy down the range, raised his gun and emptied the clip.

"Are you a gentleman?" she asked, after he'd finished.

He pulled the target back. Not a single shot had hit the 10-ring, instead making a heart-shaped outline around it. "I'll let you decide."

* * *

Morgan knocked on Alex' door. "Hey," she said, when she answered it, and stood aside to let him in.

"How are you doing?" he asked, noticing the reduced state of her bandages and such.

"I told you, I heal quickly, and she was pulling her punches. I'll be ready in plenty of time."

"So you told your boss?"

"Yeah. You?"

"It's not that easy for me," said Morgan. "Managers are supposed to give two weeks' notice, that sort of thing, so they can get a replacement. Fortunately there's Chuck and Casey, who can keep it going, but I don't know where they're gonna find someone who can tolerate that madhouse."

"Not your concern," said Alex.

"You're my concern," said Morgan.

"And you're mine. You've been stuck in that Buy More long enough."

Morgan pulled two cans of grape soda from his backpack, popped them open, one in each hand-"Show off," said Alex-and handed her one. They clinked the cans together. "Here's to moving forward."

* * *

 **A/N2** Not an easy chapter to write. Let me know what you think of it.


	15. Moving

**A/N** The next part of this story begins. The Ring will become more prominent, Verbanski less so, as various schemes come into play.

* * *

 _"_ _Where have you been?_ _"_

 _"_ _Please tell me you're allowed to flash now._ _"_

 _"_ _You'll make it up to me._ _"_

" _Here's to moving forward."_

* * *

Morgan Grimes slipped out of his bedroom like a cat. A large, clumsy cat. He listened for Chuck and/or Sarah to investigate, but all he heard was the usual billing and cooing. No help there. He continued toward his planned objective.

John Casey opened his door at the sound of a knock that was at once both firm and hesitant. How it managed to be both confused him, until he saw Morgan Grimes waiting both firmly and a bit hesitantly on the other side. "What do you want, Grimes?" Had to be about Alex, nothing else affected him that way. "Get in here before you embarrass me."

"Thanks," said Morgan, but once inside he just stood there dithering.

Casey walked past him into the living room, so could turn off his internal monitoring. Something told him this would be a scene best purged from memory. "Well, out with it, moron."

"I will. It's just...so awkward."

"What have you done now?" asked Casey. "You didn't accidentally or on purpose manage to break my little girl's heart with an ill-chosen text message, did you?"

"Of course not," said Morgan defiantly, not hesitant at all. "We mostly communicate by emojis anyway, see?" He held up his phone, displaying what seemed to Casey an endless string of hearts and flowers and little smiling circles.

Casey scowled at it and him. "That's awkward, all right."

"No, it isn't," said Morgan. He pointed to one of the arcane symbols. "See, this is me saying-"

"What do you want?" growled Casey. "Coming from you, 'awkward' means more than it usually does."

"Some days are worse than others, even for me," said Morgan. "Like today for example. The day we had that riot, Big Mike gave me a ring that he planned to propose to my mother with. Talk about awkward. Fortunately I didn't lose it during the riot, but that just meant I still had it when Mike asked me for it today. He's probably trying to get down on one knee right now."

"Ugh," said Casey, moved by the visual.

"I know, right," said Morgan, buoyed by the display of camaraderie, however small.

Very, very small. "So why come to me?"

Morgan gulped. "Well, I don't know if you know, but Alex shipped out yesterday for training for her new job, so I was there with her at the station waiting for the pickup. There must have been a lot of pollen around, or something, 'cause we were both sniffing. I reached into my pocket to give her my handkerchief, and I heard Mike's ring fall on the ground. I bent down to pick it up, and, well..."

Casey caught that visual too, inspired by a memory of himself, the night he 'shipped out'. And where was Alex 'shipping out' to? "You didn't..."

"Well, that's where the awkward part comes in," said Morgan, backing away. "We've spoken since then, but we haven't said a word about what happened. She's acting like nothing happened."

"According to you, nothing did."

"It didn't, but...even though I wasn't proposing, I'd sorta like to know if she thought it was good thing or a horrible thing."

"What about you?" asked Casey, pretty sure he knew his daughter's mind on the subject, but he kept his peace. When Grimes had the stones to ask for himself, then he would deserve to know. "Would you have been happy if she said yes, or would you be as terrified as you are right now?"

"Uh, pretty terrified, I think," said Morgan honestly, sure that Casey could smell anything else. "I didn't think we were there yet..."

"You're not," said Casey. "You're better than Bartowski, but who wouldn't be. The only thing worse than those two not talking about their ladyfeelings were all the precious looks and make-up scenes after they'd managed to screw it up again."

"They used to be such _crap_ communicators," said Morgan, shaking his head sadly. "They got better this last year, but even so, I'm glad Ellie knocked some sense into them when she did, or he'd still be overthinking it, trying to bounce his ideas off me. Painful."

Casey's face fell into a snarl, not a very long fall. "What's painful is you coming to me for romantic advice about a daughter I'm barely allowed to know." Casey grabbed Morgan by the shoulder and steered him toward the door. "You didn't propose, she didn't say yes. Regardless of whether either of you do or don't want you to actually ask, you at least know how I feel on the matter." He shoved Morgan into the courtyard and closed the door halfway. "Ecstatic." Slam.

* * *

Across the courtyard...

"You don't think he's gonna come over here, do you?" asked Ellie, keeping her voice low, as if Morgan could hear her.

"He'd better not," said Devon. "Between your work at the hospital and now what you're doing for the government, I don't get to see you often enough myself." When Morgan was gone, he came away from the window and sat down next to her. "And how is my girl?"

"Fine, Devon," said Ellie. "A little frazzled by the extra work..."

"Uh, El," said Devon, "Don't take this the wrong way but I was asking about this girl." He put his large hand over Ellie's baby-bump.

"She's a few cells larger than she was the last time you asked that question, honey," said Ellie, moving his hand. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm getting a little babied out, here. She's all we talk about."

"Not all," said Devon. "I talk about the new minivan a lot."

"Believe me, honey, I _know_. Devon, to you this is the start of an amazing adventure, and it is, but to me it's a twenty-four hour a day job that I can't get away from, even in my sleep, of which I'm getting far too little. Can we please take a vacation from the baby for a little while, be just us again?"

"El, you _do_ know-?"

"Yes, Devon, the baby will be coming along with us, wherever we go," said Ellie tiredly. She knew where her brain cells were going but what was happening to his? "It's just a figure of speech."

* * *

At the Buy More...

"Hey bud, what'cha got there?" asked Chuck, as Morgan hurried by with something tucked under his arm. He followed Morgan into his office, before the ass-man could stuff whatever it was-and Chuck had a pretty good idea what it was, since they were doing an author-promotion event that very day-into his desk drawer. "101 Questions Before I Do. Anything we should know?"

"No," said Morgan. "And even less that Casey should know."

"Hence the desk drawer," said Chuck.

"He'll probably find it here too, but at least here I can blame it on you."

"Why would I need a book about I Do?" asked Chuck. "I did already."

"If you think it ends there, you need this book more than I do," said Morgan, as his phone rang. He picked it up. "Buy More Burbank. Speaking. You want my what? My code? Identify yourself." He listened, and said, "Affirmative." He gave Chuck an apologetic look and turned away, cupping a hand over his mouth as he spoke into his phone. "Yes, I'll be right here. Understood." He hung up. "I don't understand."

"Don't understand what?"

He looked at his phone funny, like it had anything to do with what was going on. "Bravo Company's coming to take me into protective custody. They said there's a termination order out on me."

* * *

On a secure connection...

"Report," said A.

"Contact has been made," said C. "Instructions have been given. Everything's in the hands of our agent, now."

"Nothing can be traced back to us?"

"Nothing," said C confidently. "Our agent has his own interests in this area. We just had to, eh, smooth his path, shall we say?"

"I distrust personal motivations," said B. "It's unprofessional. If they fail in their personal goals, what will that failure mean to our own?"

"Nothing. We have multiple paths to success, live or die," said C. "And someone will die. That's the best part."

* * *

Casey stood to one side and saluted as the squad filed out the door in perfect order. They got into a truck and the leader answered his salute as they drove off. He went inside to see what mess they made this time.

None at all, and he grunted in surprise. Some guy selling a book, and a lot of shoppers on line. The green shirts looking pretty wistful, but they hadn't restocked the video games yet so there was nothing for them to do this time around.

Then he noticed the posters. Wedding rings. Wedding advice. Probably Big Mike's idea. He headed off to Grimes' closet to make sure of that.

He slammed the door open, but instead of Grimes' girlish scream he one of Bartowski's. Could've gone longer without hearing any more of those. He looked at the book the moron was reading. "Don't tell me you bought one of those. You're already on a downhill slope."

Chuck thought fast. The truth absolutely would not do, or Morgan would simply walk out of one termination order into another. "If that's what you think you need this book more than I do." He closed the book and put it away in the drawer. "Do me a favor. if Sarah should somehow happen to discover this, tell her it's Morgan's, okay?"

Casey snorted. Like he had any 'I Dos' in _his_ future. "Speaking of whom, where is the little troll?"

Chuck hopped down off Morgan's desk. "Left with Bravo Company."

"Really? I didn't see him."

"Protection detail. They put him in a uniform."

Casey nodded. "Camouflage, good idea. Assuming Grimes could make it from here to the door without giving it away. What were they protecting him from?"

"He said it was a termination order, but he didn't know whose," said Chuck. "I have no idea who'd be after him now."

"Me neither," said Casey. "Even I don't want him dead, book or no book. Let's leave him with Gertrude while we get a handle on the order."

* * *

Chuck and Casey stood side-by-side in Castle, while Sarah joined the meeting remotely from her position at the apartment, watching over Ellie until a new cover could be generated for her. This week they were thinking fitness instructor.

"No such order has been issued by us, team," said General Beckman. "We'll contact Miss Verbanski for whatever details she may have, and look into it."

Chuck smelled a rat. "Is there anything I can do, General?"

"Unfortunately, Agent Bartowski, we have need of your participation elsewhere. We have learned that this man-" a picture of a man in fatigues popped up on the screen "Is on his way to Los Angeles."

Chuck had no idea who the man was, although the uniform was familiar, and he wasn't about to flash on the man if he could help it. "Turrini," snarled Casey, which saved him a step.

"And he is?"

"The Chief aide to this man," said Beckman, putting another image on the screen.

Chuck recognized him far too easily. "Goya again?"

"Goya still," muttered Casey.

"We need you to stake out the embassy and find out what Turrini is doing here. Costa Gravas is moving forward into a democratic world, we need to make sure nothing happens to reverse that. Dismissed."

* * *

"Hey Sarah?" asked Chuck, as they waited in the van. Casey had gone from the Buy More straight home to take over Sarah's duties, far from any possibility of random encounters with Costa Gravans.

"Yes, Chuck?" Sarah asked with some amusement. Her fiance's voice sounded like he was up to something.

"You know that 'I Do' book I got?"

"Mm-hmm." 'Wasted money on' was more like it. If there was one person in the world she didn't need to have those conversations with, it was him.

"Could you not tell Morgan we have one? He wants to think he's helping."

Sarah sighed. "I wish you'd said something earlier. I already told Ellie it was his."

Chuck sighed. "I need a flowchart."

"Hey, lovebirds," snapped Casey's voice from a speaker, "Whatever you're talking about, stop. I'm pretty sure I don't want to hear it."

"If you couldn't hear it how did you know we were talking?"

"You've heard of video, right, numb-nuts?" They could practically hear him shake his head in disgust. "Anyway, it looks like Turrini isn't going to the embassy. Three guesses where he _is_ going."

* * *

Devon left off giving his wife a foot rub at the sound of a firm knock on the front door. "Who could that be at this time of night?"

"Check the screen like Sarah told you," said Ellie, moving closer to the safe room. She hit her speed-dial. "Casey?"

"I see 'em," said their protector, studying them as he targeted the weapons. "I see no guns, no attack stance." No hits on the heat and motion detectors. "They look more like an honor guard. Devon, no need to antagonize them. Answer the door, nice and easy. I got you covered."

From across the courtyard he saw the door open, Devon managing to look both surprised and scared. Guy couldn't lie his way out of a paper bag, so he probably was, not that Casey could blame him. "Hello?"

"Buenos noches, senor Doctor Woodcombe," said Turrini. He and his men snapped off respectful salutes. "Costa Gravas calls once more."

* * *

 **A/N2** So we ended up in more or less the same place, having gone by a totally different route to get here. Please let me know what you think of it.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N** This part of the Coup D'Etat is perfectly fine for the Rough Draft, which actually makes it harder to write.

* * *

 _"_ _So awkward."_

 _"_ _Anything we should know?"_

 _"_ _Even I don't want him dead_ _._ _"_

" _Costa Gravas calls once more."_

* * *

Chuck and Sarah looked at the front door to Ellie and Devon's place, but they headed over to Casey's first. He'd been keeping them updated as best he could, but once the soldiers had gone inside he lost his eyes on the situation. Ellie hadn't wanted any internal monitoring, but at least she hadn't activated her screamer.

He buzzed them in. "Leave your guns," he said, not taking his eyes off the monitor. "As far as they know you two are medical. Besides, they're army. Sarah could probably take the lot of them by herself."

Chuck's phone rang. Ellie. "Hey sis," he said, trying to sound all brotherly and non-threatening, in case someone was listening. "We were gonna come over but we saw you had guests...Really?... Sure, we'll be right there." He put his phone away. "We may be established as medical but I'm also established as family. Wanna go see what's going on?" he asked Sarah.

"I'm a bit tired," she said. "How about you go on without me?"

Chuck's face went slack. "Um..."

"Let's go, you goof," said Sarah. She looked at Casey as they walked away. "'Wanna go see?' Can you believe this guy?"

"Yeah," said Casey. "It's you I can't believe."

She stopped, looking at him funny. "What do you mean?"

"He's right, you know," said Chuck, pulling her along to the door. "You did say you weren't funny."

"Yeah, well...I'm tired of being a cannibal, so I figured maybe I'd better learn."

* * *

Casey watched them enter the apartment, like a nice, normal couple, their guns left at home. With Ellie's safety handed off to someone else, he changed his tasking, and hit the button to report to the General. His report to her was brief and to the point. "Any word on Grimes, ma'am?" he asked, when all the important matters were dealt with.

"Nothing yet, Colonel, and from the noise I'm hearing from Mr. Depak I'm suspecting there won't be any," said Beckman. "On the plus side it has inspired him to develop a number of new search algorithms, in the belief that there must be more to Mr. Grimes' life than what he's found so far."

"No, there doesn't," said Casey.

"Don't tell Manoosh that, please," said Beckman. "Also on the plus side, if it should turn out that there is a legitimate threat, Mr. Grimes' footprint on the web is small enough that we should be able to replace him with a different and far more capable operative."

"Why would you do that?" asked Casey.

"Because if we don't you know Agent Bartowski will," said the General, not entirely unhappy. "The man is loyal to a fault."

"Hard to call that a fault," said Casey. "Permission to contact Verbanski Corp. on the matter? She still does technically work for us."

"Technically," said Beckman. "But please be discreet. An independent outfit like hers having more intelligence than the NSA is bad for our image."

"Copy that." Once he was off the line with his superior Casey pulled out his personal phone, touching the top contact. "Miss Verbanski?...You're alone, excellent. Gertrude, I'm calling about Grimes, and this termination order..." Casey listened for a few moments, and began to laugh.

* * *

The next morning...

Someone had the nerve to knock on Big Mike's door. Even more strangely, Big Mike actually told that someone to "Get your ugly self in here", although he didn't use those exact words. He was looking down at his keyboard as the door opened carefully, and he didn't look up as it closed with a soft click. "What do you want?" he asked, although again, he didn't use those exact words.

"A moment of your time, sir?" said his guest humbly.

That got Big Mike's attention. He looked up at the well-groomed stranger standing at attention in front of his desk. "Who the hell are you?" he asked, using those exact words.

"Jeffery Barnes, sir, 'ugly ass' and all."

Mike put his keyboard to one side. "What are you up to, Barnes, looking all normal and stuff?"

"You can thank Doctor Woodcombe for that, sir. He told me to stop sleeping in my van and I did."

Mike stood up to see all of Jeff at one time. Even his shoes were shined. "Somebody ought to give that boy a medal."

"I think so too, sir."

Mike sat down again, gratefully. Ever since yesterday his knee had been hurting. "So, what's on your mind, Barnes?" he asked, wiping his nose. He threw the tissue on top of a pile of them in his wastebasket.

Jeff noticed that, and other telltale indicators on Big Mike's face. "Have you been crying, sir?"

"Not where any of those animals could see it," said Mike. "I was just...processing Morgan's termination papers, but I can't type through the tears. I love that boy, but he's gone to fly on his own. Now I'm gonna need me a new number two man. Damn. It's not like I want to have to deal with all your little problems when there's fish to catch."

"No, sir. Sorry, sir. Speaking of problems, I just came to you to report that I detected a flaw in the program that tracks all the sales for the Salesman of the Year contest, Big Mike. I fixed it, though. Everyone has their proper numbers now."

"Well, thank God, you did, Barnes. Those guys are like rabid wolves out there, and the ladies are worse. If someone had gimmicked the numbers there would have been hell to pay."

Jeff nodded. "I thought so too, sir."

"Who was getting all the sales?"

From outside, an anguished shout came clearly through the thin walls. "God-dammit!"

"Lester Patel," said Jeff. "I'm sure it was accidental, sir."

"I'm sure it was, too," said Mike. "That boy wouldn't live long enough to get within smelling distance of any of that popcorn shrimp, or those inland empire lady parts he talks about all the time."

Jeff shook his head sadly. "All the time, sir."

"Corporate may go by the numbers but we know better down here. All he does is eat Pirate Booty and scare the customers."

"Not anymore, sir," said Jeff. "I also disabled the boob-cam and destroyed all the disks. It was disrespectful of our female customers and coworkers."

From outside, an anguished shout came clearly through the thin walls. "God-dammit!"

* * *

Something splashed Morgan Grimes in the face and he awoke, spluttering, his head spinning. He didn't fall out of his chair only because he'd been tied to it. He didn't understand. The last he knew, he'd been...he'd been...funny, he couldn't remember the last thing he remembered. Then he smelled himself. "I smell like asparagus!" He hated asparagus.

A speaker in the corner crackled to life. "That's not all you'll smell like if you don't tell us what we want to know, Agent Grimes."

 _Agent?_ "I'm not an agent, whoever you are, but I know a lot of-" agents. "People. A lot of big, bad-" spy people. "A lot of very unhappy people who will take care of me, and they'll take care of me by taking care of you."

"You're not fooling anyone, Agent Grimes. Your associations are well-known. Before we're through, you'll tell us everything you know about Chuck Bartowski."

"Who?"

"Really, Agent Grimes? If you want to go down this road things will become very unpleasant for you, very quickly." A screen came down in front of Morgan, and it lit up with a still photo. "Chuck Bartowski, Agent Grimes."

"Oh, you mean Chuck. I know Chuck, we've worked together for years. Funny story, I don't know if you know this but Chuck and I used to work together long before we were in the Buy More. He ran the ferris wheel at a carnival, and I ran the merry-go-round, but we never met, because we ran in different circles. Get it? Different circles?"

"You asked for it, Agent Grimes."

Morgan slumped. "You have no sense of humor."

From behind him, someone grabbed Morgan's head, holding it still as blocks were placed, preventing him from turning his head, or doing anything but looking straight ahead. The room got darker, familiar music played as the screen lit. EPISODE 1 - THE PHANTOM MENACE.

"Nooo! Nooo!" shouted Morgan, twisting and writhing in the chair, unable to look away, forced to listen to every God-forsaken word.

* * *

Gertrude Verbanski turned the sound down on the screaming. "You're sure this will work?"

Casey took the cigar from his mouth and blew smoke into the air. "Define 'work'."

* * *

Somebody knocked on the door again. "What is it?"

Jeff took that as permission to enter. "Sir, we need a decision on the Salesman of the Year."

"Did you call Bartowski?"

"Yes, sir," said Jeff. "He mumbled something about bikinis and to call him in a week."

Mike looked horrified. "You want me to call corporate, and then go out there and tell those monsters that only one of them gets to go on an all-expenses paid resort vacation to Riverside? Do I look suicidal? This is what I have an ass-man for."

"But you don't have an ass-man," said Jeff. "Morgan resigned."

"I do now," said Mike. "You've been number two to Lester for years, you be number two to me now." He opened a drawer and pulled out a beaten-up looseleaf notebook, put a folded grey vest on top of it, and handed them to Jeff. "Here's the phone numbers you'll need. Don't let me down, son."

* * *

Chuck couldn't watch as the premier of Costa Gravas slobbered all over his sister's hands. Not that he wanted to, he didn't, and the sound alone was bad enough, but there were only the two of them to protect her. This environment was thick with armed men he couldn't trust, so he was only listening with a part of his attention as Goya somehow realized that Ellie was pregnant. Good nose, apparently.

When Goya introduced his wife, he and Sarah switched off on tracking the guards as they made small talk. Chuck smiled at all the right places, putting an arm around Sarah protectively in case Goya should make any attempt to charm her away. They danced one dance, leaving the rest to Devon and Ellie as they continuously scanned the perimeter, making innocuous small talk from the I Do book while pretending to drink. The big, cloth-draped object in the center of the courtyard bothered him, anyone could be hiding under there.

As it turned out, the only person under the cloth was Devon himself, as oversized as the generalissimo's ego. Chuck took advantage of the presentation to scan the yard while no one was moving. When the flash came, it was almost a relief. "Chuck?" asked Sarah.

"There's a Soviet-era weapons system behind that red door," he said. "Now or later?"

"We're supposed to be protecting Ellie."

"So what do we do?" asked Chuck. "Ask Goya to please not aim any missiles at the West Coast?"

Sarah thought about their options. "The party. It's a good cover."

Chuck thought about his options. "Care to be swept away with passion?"

"You men, maybe you have to sweep," said Sarah, smiling as she sauntered past him toward the indicated hallway. "Me, I just have to-" she crooked one finger, "This." The crowd parted around them as he followed.

In the hallway they came to a shocked halt, seeing Ellie and Devon in a passionate frenzy of their own. Sarah immediately covered Chuck's eyes with her hand. "What are you doing here?"

"When you see eleven feet of marble husband you'll know," panted Ellie. "Why are you here?"

"The missile control panel behind the door Devon's holding you up against."

Devon put her down, and she smoothed her dress. "I thought there was a missile somewhere around here."

Sarah dropped her hand as Chuck covered his ears. "La-la-la-la, I'm not listening."

Ellie high-fived Sarah. "Still got it."

Which is when all the automatic weapons started firing.

* * *

John Casey was at home, drinking Scotch and reviewing all those godawful tapes of Chuck and Morgan talking about any dimwitted topic under the sun, building a list of Morgan's personal most-hated. Consulting for Gertrude had its advantages. Nothing like a good interrogation to get the blood-

His phone rang. He stabbed the playback off and checked the caller ID. Why would the Buy More be calling him now? _Ugh._ Why wouldn't the Buy More be calling him now? He strangled his irritation. "Hello?"

"May I speak to John Casey, please?"

"Who the hell are you?"

"Funny, Big Mike said the same thing. It's Jeff. Jeff Barnes."

"What do you want, Barnes?"

"Just to congratulate you, John. Tomorrow you'll be in Riverside, representing the Burbank Buy More as our Salesman of the Year!"

* * *

Ellie and Devon cuddled together in the back of the plane, safe and sound after Goya had extracted them all to his private escape plane. He'd even left a few of his guards behind to make room for his personal physician and his family. The bride, anyway, but the bride was adamant about her brother coming too, so, two more guards gone. Chuck and Sarah guarded them by blocking the aisle as they stood behind Goya.

"The embassy in LA is waiting for you, Excellency," said Turrini, one of the guards not left behind.

"Good," said Goya. "While they are busy waiting for me there I will go to the only truly safe place in all the world."

Turrini looked confused. "Where is that, excellency?"

Goya blew the smoke of a Costa Gravan Double Corona in his face. "Wherever John Casey is."

* * *

 **A/N2** Next time, Episode 5 - The Lester Strikes Back. Hopefully you'll drop me a line and tell me what you think of this story.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N** A lot to do here.

* * *

 _"_ _I'm tired of being a cannibal_ _."_

 _"_ _I smell like asparagus!_ _"_

 _"Still got it_ _._ _"_

" _Wherever John Casey is."_

* * *

The traitor hid himself in plain sight, as traitors are wont to do. Why not? As far as their victims were concerned, they were where they belonged. It was their great strength.

It wasn't a betrayal, not really. That's what he told himself. The person he was betraying had betrayed him first. They wore the same uniform, went to the same places, ate the same food, but still the man he would have and had called his brother had moved against him. Denied him. Turned his homeland into a mockery of its former self.

This would not stand.

* * *

All things considered, John Casey would rather have been in Philadelphia. Not only did the city figure in one of Ronald Reagan's greatest pieces of wit (and Casey always appreciated good wit), Casey had been born there, while this fat clown who insisted on talking to him hadn't.

More to the point, it wasn't Riverside, a scenic and otherwise pleasant locale, currently overrun with Buy More employees. Employees of the year. The cream of the crap. Some of them were even wearing their green shirts. Did they live in the damn things? From the smell of it, maybe.

He'd given up a wife and a daughter for this? Casey didn't mind sacrificing so others could live their dreams, but really, some people, these people in particular, needed a better class of dreams. Isn't that what dreams were supposed to be, better lives, not just more-of-the-same lives? As it was, Casey could only hope Fat Clown lived and died in Champagne-Urbana, which seemed to be his life's ambition. Keep the infection from spreading.

Then, unimaginably, it got worse. "John Casey," said a rough, accented voice from behind him. "El Angel de la Vida, my old friend, we meet again."

Casey turned. His ears had not been playing tricks on him, or his nose. Generalissimo Goya's cigar overwhelmed whatever pungency might have existed in the greenshirt outfit he wore, an attempt at camouflage that wasn't entirely successful. His entire guard cadre wore similar outfits and it wasn't successful on them either. Only an idiot wouldn't see these guys for what they were.

"Hey, what store are you from, man?" asked Fat Clown, reaching out a hand.

"Costa Gravas," said Goya, holding up a hand so his men would stay back. They were in disguise, supposed to blend in.

"I didn't know we had a branch there," said the clown, hand still extended.

"The world is full of surprises," said Goya.

"I wouldn't know," said the clown, moving in. "I was born in Champagne-Urbana and by the grace of God that's where-"

Goya's guards moved, and the man went stumbling back into the pool. "Cannonball!" yelled somebody, and another greenshirted buffoon grabbed Goya and leapt into the pool with him.

"Stand down!" barked Casey to Goya's men, before jumping into the pool himself, good suit and all, to rescue their master. Everyone else cheered and threw themselves into the water, as Casey surfaced with the Premier in hand. Goya was mainly interested in his ruined cigar. "I trust you have a new one nearby," he said, as Casey towed him to the edge and his men took hold. The Buy Morons were too busy splashing and dunking each other to notice.

Casey looked around as he hauled himself out of the water. Alone on the skirt, they were far too exposed for his liking. Too much collateral damage, if things went south, and Costa Gravas was a tropical nation. "Let's go elsewhere, Excellency. We can dry off and you can give me a sitrep on what's happening back home."

* * *

Back home...

Ellie opened the door to Sarah's knock and let her future sister-in-law inside. "Where's Chuck?" He'd taken the week off from the Buy More, but he never took time off from Sarah.

"He's in our secret spy base-"

"The one under the Buy More?" asked Ellie, leading her guest back to her breakfast table.

"You figured it out?" asked Sarah.

"It was pretty obvious," said Ellie, pouring coffee for Sarah. "I figure he's over there right now, analyzing the secret spy photos you probably took with your secret spy spy gear of that control room Goya dragged us through." She hadn't seen Sarah do it but she knew her too well.

"You're good," said Sarah, taking her cup. "I guess it's true what they say, women don't need a Lens."

Ellie laughed. "He's nerdified you."

Sarah shook her head. "That's not even a word."

"It is now." Ellie patted her tummy. "If I can create this I can certainly create a new word."

Sarah his her smile behind the coffee cup as she took a sip. So nice to have a normal friend, part of a normal life. Too bad it couldn't be like this forever. "Well, that answers my question. We were wondering how you were doing after last night."

"Oh, I'm fine," said Ellie. "Poor Devon was a little upset seeing his head blown off, I had to make it up him." She leaned in close. "Let me tell you, deadly danger, not fun, but post-deadly danger..." She sighed happily.

"Oh, yeah," said Sarah. She sighed happily.

"I'm not listeninnnggg," sang Ellie, her hands too busy to slap over her ears, and she didn't want to get butter in her hair anyway. "How's the book?"

 _Fourteen and counting._ "I told you, it's Morgan's."

"Yeah, right. Morgan probably has his own, and he'd be telling Casey it's Chuck's." Ellie shook her head. "Hopeless."

"Ellie, believe me, Chuck doesn't need to take lessons." Sarah's phone rang, and she checked the screen. She put it on the table and put the call on speaker. "Hey, sweetie, I'm with Ellie. We were just talking about you."

 _"Nothing bad, I hope,"_ said Chuck.

"Hey, Ellie said 'hopeless', I didn't." Ellie frowned and threw an olive at her.

 _"Well, that's all right then."_

Sarah and Ellie smiled at each other. "So why are you calling me on our secret spy phone?"

 _"Secret spy bad news,"_ said Chuck, playing along. _"Costa Gravas is nuclear."_

* * *

General Beckman's office...

"Costa Gravas is _what_?"

* * *

Riverside...

"Since when has Costa Gravas been a nuclear nation?" asked Casey, his voice dangerously low.

"Since Havana," said Goya, looking mildly out of sorts. It was, after all, Casey's cigar he was smoking, even if he'd given it to Casey in the first place. "The entire time you were in my palace walls waiting to kill me, I was in Havana, arranging the purchase with Volkoff's top man. It was funnier then than it is now, believe me."

"Why is that, Excellency?"

"Because my wife has the other key," said Goya, pulling a necklace out from under his shirt. "It takes two, and at the time I thought we would be together forever. I guess she didn't appreciate the symbolism." He started to put the key back.

"Don't bother," said Casey. "You know they're just going to order me to confiscate that." He held out his hand.

Goya's men all aimed their weapons, a swarm of fireflies on Casey's chest. "You know we cannot let you do that, Colonel."

Goya looked at his aide. "Are you crazy? I owe him my life. His blood flows in my veins. "

Turrini sneered, "Hortencia will need it."

"Now this is the betrayal I expected," said Casey. He stepped in front of Goya, the fireflies following. "You know you didn't bring enough men, Major."

Turrini put his pistol in Casey's face. "I don't want to kill an unarmed man."

"Excellency, give me your gun," said Casey, holding out a hand behind him. As he heard Goya draw his weapon, Casey said, "You've seen the people here, you'll be doing me a favor."

Goya hit Casey over the head with his pistol, dropping him to the floor. He held out the gun to Turrini. "No harm comes to this man. I go with you."

Turrini took the gun and nodded. He had nothing against Casey personally, and professionally they needed to maintain a low profile. "Vamanos."

* * *

At Verbanski Corp...

Gertrude's phone buzzed. _"Corporal Swan to see you."_

"Send her in." She looked up as a petite female entered, attractive according to Grimes' profile. "How'd it go, Swan?"

"Total failure, ma'am," said Swan, her top seduction expert. "The door stayed open, the table stayed between us, he told me about his girlfriend in Basic right away." Denying her the chance to use her most basic stratagems.

"So he was interested?"

"Hell, yes, he was interested," said Swan, pleased about that much at least. "But he's not a fool. I can step things up if you wish."

"Yes," said Gertrude. "Step it up as you need to. Make sure you've got an out at all times. If you succeed, break off immediately."

"Yes, ma'am." Swan turned and left, a slight smile on her face. She hated to fail in any assignment, especially not a high-profile target like Grimes. She'd have to do this one slow and steady, like poison. Her favorite technique.

They didn't call her the Viper for nothing.

* * *

Costa Gravas, somewhere inside the walls of the palace...

Chuck was trying not to think about the things he was probably crawling over. "You actually volunteered to come with us, rather than stay at a cushy resort, Casey?"

"A cushy resort full of greenshirts, Bartowski. What's a little slime compared to that?" Not that Casey was sure that there was a difference. "Not to mention that they took Goya on my watch. I'd love to watch the little troll fry but it's going to be on my terms or not at all, get me?"

"We get you," said Sarah. "How do you know where we're going?"

"Two ways. First, this is the only way they could have gotten those control panels into the palace without us seeing them. Second, listen for the sound of them making pompous speeches. You'd have to be quiet to hear that, which is probably how you keep missing it."

 _"-exactly the problem!"_ Hortencia's voice echoed through the spaces. _"You have to do everything your way!"_

"Found him," muttered Casey.

"Found her," said Chuck.

"Found them both," said Sarah, speeding up. "He's the key to her."

"Isn't it usually the other way around?" asked Chuck, trying to keep up. "The woman is the key to the man?"

"In a healthy relationship it's both," said Sarah, getting quieter as they got closer. "I've been reading that 'I Do' book even if you haven't."

"I've been reading," whined Chuck.

"Did you read the preface?" asked Sarah. "I doubt the guy had this exact scenario in mind, though. If Goya wasn't important to Hortencia even now, she would have already killed him."

"So you're saying this whole revolution is a relationship power struggle?" asked Casey.

"Yep," breathed Sarah. "With nuclear weapons, and she's got both of those keys."

"Is it too late for me to go back to Riverside?"

Suddenly the room echoed with the sound of multiple weapons being drawn and cocked, men moving out of the lines of fire. Hortencia yelling, _"I'll shoot you in the head the way you shot me in the heart!"_

"Too late," said Sarah, and she kicked the wall down. "While the dust settled, she shouted, "You're making a mistake, Hortencia."

"Who are you?" shouted Mme. Goya back. "Come out of there."

Sarah came out of the wall, hands in the air. Chuck followed, while Casey hung back. Goya and his wife were pointing guns at each other, while Turrini smirked to the side. "My name is Sarah Walker, although that will be changing soon." She curled her fingers around Chuck's.

"Do yourself a favor," said Mme. Goya. "Spare yourself the misery."

"We will give them nice peaceful executions instead," said Turrini. "Guards."

"I'm doing you the favor, Hortencia," said Sarah, and Mme Goya held up a hand. The guards stopped and backed off. "Clearly you've forgotten how much you love your husband. I understand, it's easy enough to do, when that love is the foundation of everything else. You get so caught up in the roles and the politics, that you forget the floor you walk across every day."

"It was so much easier in the beginning," said Hortencia. "All we had was a cave, and each other."

"I know that cave," said Sarah. "It's a terrible place to be alone in. I'm just beginning to build the palace that you've lived in so long, and I would never want to walk though it alone either." Chuck wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "You won your war, madame, don't lose the peace."

"What peace?" said Hortencia. "Smiling diplomatically while my husband slobbers all over that brunette-"

"Sister of mine?" asked Sarah, with a frown.

Hortencia backed away from that one. "The peace of these empty palace halls, as my husband cavorts in Havana and calls it negotiations?"

"They _were_ negotiations," said Goya, almost forgotten in the background.

"Still you lie?" shouted Turrini. "Shoot him, Hortencia. Lead your people."

Hortencia glared at him, and he backed off. "Turrini sent me pictures, you and some brunette whore."

"That 'whore' is Alexei Volkoff's top man," said Goya, looking around nervously. "A woman in form only. Her coldness chilled my Latin blood, made me desperate for your touch, mi amor."

Turrini pulled out his gun. "I'll give you her touch, you undeserving swi-"

Chuck's arm left Sarah's shoulder and slammed against Turrini's chest, knocking him backward. Casey stepped out behind him and wrapped an arm around his neck, grabbing his gun.

"Now, now," he whispered in Turrini's ear. "Let's let the two lovebirds have their moment." He looked over at the lovebirds. "You know he used to watch you while you were sleeping?"

Hortencia's face twisted in disgust.

"Please, my love, I have wronged you, I see that now," said Goya. He lowered his weapon as his wife looked upon him again. "I will do anything, even see that marriage counselor like you wanted, although we'll have to find a new way to smuggle him into the palace since the Americans clearly know about this one." He pointed at the hole in the wall.

"You would do that for me?" asked his wife, well aware of how much he despised any appearance of weakness. She lowered her gun too.

Goya put away his weapon. "Anything. Let my love be your armor, your shield against vipers like these..." He gestured contemptuously at his former aide.

Hortencia moved into his empty arms. "Let _my_ love keep your sword keen and sharp, against any foe..."

"Challenge me," begged Goya. "Feed my soul."

"I want a role in the new government."

"Secretary of State."

"I will deal with the Americans," said Hortencia, pressing her body firmly against his. "Get those filthy missiles out of our jungle."

Goya smiled. "The People's jungle."

Hortencia smiled. "I love it when you talk politics." They lost themselves in a passionate embrace.

Casey couldn't take anymore, so he distracted himself making Turrini unconscious.

"You got it," said Chuck, in Sarah's ear.

She walked over and took the two keys from the control panel. "Now I do."

* * *

 **A/N2** I loved Casey's wheelchair moment, but I didn't have a wheelchair. Let me know what you think of it.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N** For the benefit of those who don't know, there's a Facebook group for Chuck Fanfiction, and we'd love to have some new members.

Some of the things I thought would continue didn't, some of the things I thought would end didn't. That's story-telling for you. It never goes where I expect it to.

* * *

 _"The world is full of surprises_ _."_

 _"Hopeless._ _"_

 _"He's the key to her_ _._ _"_

 _"_ _You got it_ _."_

* * *

"God I wish you were here," said Morgan, on the phone with Alex for the first time in their joint training schedules.

 _"So do I,"_ she said, _"But why do I get the feeling that your wish is a little different from my wish?"_

Morgan rubbed his eyes. "Because you don't have Corporal Swan in your command structure and I do. She's never too blatant but she never stops either. It's attractive and annoying at the same time."

 _"I'm kissing you."_

Morgan smiled, just like he imagined she was smiling. "I'm kissing you back."

 _"So what are you doing about it?"_

She'd been all gung-ho about taking action even before they'd put her in commando school. "I'm doing exercises in my head from Dr. Fred's book, the ones I can remember. Everything that's true about you is false for her."

 _"Who's book?"_

Right. She wasn't there for that part. "If I could remember his last name I wouldn't be calling him Dr. Fred," said Morgan. "We did a book signing at the Buy More right before I left, it was called 101 Questions Before I Do."

Her voice got very small over the phone. _"I do? As in, 'I Do'?"_

Time for a strategic retreat, especially seeing as how he hadn't meant to make the advance in the first place. "As in, 'I could', or 'I might'," said Morgan. "Hopefully not 'I won't'."

 _"Let me finish school first,"_ said Alex. _"Morgan, the day you held up that ring, even though it was an accident and I knew it wasn't for me, I knew what I wanted to say if you ever did get a ring of your own.'_

"You did?"

 _"I did and I do,"_ said Alex. _"And so do you, or you wouldn't be telling me about Swan. Bonus points for you. Fortunately, at the rate we're getting in these phone calls it'll take us a while to get through 101 questions."_

"It'll take longer than that. I left it in my desk drawer at work, didn't want Casey to find it." He could get Chuck to mail it to him, no problem.

 _"What are you so worried about him for? It's not like he's my father or anything."_

Morgan could practically smell the burning bridges, and they weren't even his bridges. Not fair. "Maybe not, but he puts the _loco_ in _loco parentis_. He likes you and wants the best for you, and Casey has trouble using 'best' and me in the same sentence, you know? He's a violent man, with a lot of guns, and I don't really want to find out how he deals with that sort of cognitive dissonance."

Alex laughed. _"You and your strategy. This is tactics, silly. If he wants me to be happy, tell him you make me happy. Better yet, I'll tell him. How many girls can say their boyfriends literally make them feel alive?"_

Morgan didn't remember seeing a chapter in Dr. Fred's book on that, either, but that book was also all about strategy, wasn't it? "We have had more than our share of assassins..."

 _"So don't worry about him, and don't you even think about Swan. You think about that ring."_

 _She's so practical._ "Think about the ring." Wait a minute, wasn't it supposed to be the other way around?

 _"That's right, the ring."_

The One Ring. Except for the whole 'Dark Lord' thing. "I'm kissing you so hard right now." _My preciousss..._

 _"I'm kissing you back..."_

* * *

Back in Riverside...

Casey left the silk from his chute in his room and hurried out to protect his cover, by mixing with the other greenshirts. At least there was an open bar. He stopped off and got a few before taking the plunge. "Hey, Casey, where ya been?" said Fat Clown as he joined them by the pool. "We're telling our favorite Buy More stories. Bob told the scurvy one again. You got anything new?"

 _Buy More war stories?_ Casey smiled, before he looked dubiously at the pool water all those Buy More feet were dangling in, and pulled up a chair. "You want them by ranked by intensity or by person?" he asked. "Tell you what, let's just start with the last month and go from there."

Just that last line got a laugh, and a larger audience. Casey lit his cigar (a Costa Gravan Angel, from the Premier's own hand) and prepared to enjoy the evening.

* * *

In Costa Gravas...

"God, I'm tired," said Chuck, leaning back against the concrete.

"You're tired?" asked Sarah, pulling up a chunk of wall next to him. "I had to spend the entire day with Hortencia."

"Could have been worse," said Chuck. "Could have been with her husband."

"It _was_ with her husband." She wiped her hands on her pants. "Looks like I'm their new favorite marriage counselor."

Chuck wondered if that Fred guy would consider putting a stop in Costa Gravas on his book tour. "Did Goya give you a cigar?" Maybe he could do a book about how to handle things _after_ the I Do. It's not like getting married was the end.

"Do I smoke? Good thing Casey left, he would have killed both of them in self-defense."

Chuck closed his eyes, and gusted out a laugh. "Ladyfeelings at thirty paces."

"Not to mention a lot of socialist stargazing." She looked over at him. "They're having a post-revolution party, you want to go?"

"Is this you being funny again?" asked Chuck. "I just got these consoles disassembled. When our guys get here, who do you think gets to go with them into the jungle to disarm those nukes?"

 _Please take me with you._ "So we're almost done."

"Yes, almost done." Chuck opened one eye a little to look at her. "Did you remember to ask him about Volkoff?"

"I did," said Sarah. "He promised to send me all his files, on something called Project Beacon."

They were alone in the bunker, so Chuck felt free to flash, but there was nothing to flash on. "Have we heard that name before?"

"You're asking me?" said Sarah. "I got the impression he was just as glad to do it, that agent he mentioned must have really spooked him."

Chuck grinned at her. "Hey, you really are funny."

She rolled her eyes. "I wasn't planning that, you goof."

"The best never do," said Chuck.

" _Anyway,_ I figure between the party, the hangover, and the lengthy reconciliation with his wife _without_ an American agent under foot, we have plenty of time to get home before we'll have that material to look over."

"Good," said Chuck. "There isn't a lot on Volkoff in the you-know-what and nothing on this agent of his. I'm sure General Beckman will be glad for anything we can dig up."

"Leave the digging for tomorrow," said Sarah, pushing off from the wall. "Come on. We've got a palace suite and all night to use it in."

"Sounds good." Chuck groaned getting up. "How about a massage tonight and an early morning?"

"Who gets the massage?"

"Me."

"Oo, yummy," said Sarah, cracking her knuckles. "Deal."

* * *

A day or so later, at Verbanski Corp...

"I don't understand, ma'am," said Corporal Swan. The guy was a goofball, he should be crawling after her by now.

"I do," said Gertrude. She opened a drawer and pulled out a package, opened by her mail room personnel as a matter of course. "This arrived for Grimes this morning."

Swan took the package and pulled out the contents. "A hundred and one questions?"

"Look at page eight," said Gertrude, and she waited until Swan had done so. "Sound familiar?"

"God- _dammit_ ," said Swan, slapping the book on the boss' desk. "He's been playing me the whole time?"

"It looks that way," said Gertrude, putting the book away. It was, after all, Grimes' property and should not have had even this slight detour. "He did a pretty good job, too, if you didn't even recognize it. I'll have to get a copy of this book for our own training program."

"Let me use that," said Swan, reaching out a hand. "Now that I know what he's doing-"

"You've been made, Swan," said Gertrude. She slammed the drawer. "The assignment's over."

"But ma'am," said Swan, "I have a reputation..."

"So did I, once," said Gertrude. "So does Grimes, at the moment. They don't last. Yours went on a bit longer than most but welcome to the real world. Don't worry about it. I have no problem with my people falling down, as long as they get back up again."

Swan nodded sharply, once. She'd get back up again, all right, and she knew just whose body she would use to do it. "Ma'am."

* * *

Lester was seething. His beloved Buy More was just humming along, like a well-oiled machine. He was no mere cog for a machine, he was a free wheel. He sang, he didn't hum, but even Jeff's playing had become more...pedestrian lately. Ironic that he was so inspiring everywhere else.

Speak of the devil. "Good morning, Lester," said the ass-man. "How are you today?"

"Fine, fine," said Lester in a bored monotone.

"Come on, don't be a Grumpy Gus," said Jeff cheerfully, taking a seat behind the Nerd Herd desk. "It's just a job." He looked over automatically as the doors opened. "Hey, Doc. How was the babymoon?"

"Hey, Jeffster," said Devon loudly.

"That's right, rub it in," muttered Lester.

"We had a great time, thank you for asking," continued Devon. "Got back in last night, and I thought I'd see how you were doing. Looks like my advice worked." Lester stopped pretending to work and started pretending to not eavesdrop. He was good at that.

"You bet, Doc," said Jeff. "I stopped sleeping in Loretta, and I'm a new man."

"A new _ass_ -man, I see," chuckled Devon. "Good job."

"I'm trying," said Jeff. "Morgan left some awfully big shoes to fill."

"And he's such a little guy," said Devon. To him, most men were little guys.

"Come on," said Jeff. "Let's get you set up." He and Devon walked away.

Lester watched them go, his gaze immediately caught by a pair of breasts, as some hottie walked out of Lawn and Garden with a greenshirt in tow, carrying a coil of garden hose. He watched the display for a moment, then turned away, sighing-no best friend, no boob-cam-as only the truly artistic can sigh.

* * *

On a secure conference call...

"Success, gentlemen," said C. "The revolution in Costa Gravas was foiled."

"Explain the nature of this success," snapped E, for whom nothing was a success without a high body count.

"Gladly," said C, who loved to preen as much as anyone, and more than most. "Turrini was an expendable fool. His failed attempt at a coup brought Goya's possession of the missing nukes to light. We lost Turrini, but getting those nukes away from Goya was more important, and it also served to turn Bartowski's focus toward Volkoff."

"Admirable," said B. "But only if you have plans for Bartowski after he's ceased to be of use."

"I do. He'll never see us coming. After all, we're the good guys," said Clyde Decker.

* * *

Back home at Echo Park...

"Hey, sis," said Chuck, finding his sister at an idle moment by the fountain. "You're looking better. Babymoons agree with you." He sat next to her.

"Not to mention the utter lack of revolutionary activity of any kind," said Ellie with a smile, but that faded fast. "I heard you went back?"

"Had to," said Chuck. "Goya had one of the keys for his nukes. I still don't know why they didn't just kill him and take it, but Turrini wasn't playing the game like a proper revolutionary would. He had his eye on Hortencia. Turned out that whole thing was basically a lovers' quarrel with guns, and he'd been inciting the whole thing. Sarah handled it without lifting a finger. Well, actually she lifted ten fingers." He held up his hands in surrender.

Ellie smiled. "I don't know which life she's better suited for, the one she has or the one she wants."

"She's just all-around fabulous," said Chuck. He looked up as Sarah left their apartment. "Hey, sweetie. We were just talking about you."

"Nothing good, I hope," said Sarah, coming over.

Ellie threw her brother under the bus. "Hey, he said 'fabulous', I didn't." Chuck appeared shocked at the betrayal.

"Well, that's all right then." Sarah reached out a hand.

Chuck touched his fingers to hers. "What's so important it has to interrupt a brother-sister post-crisis bonding moment?"

"Those files we were expecting finally came in," said Sarah, handing him a secure tablet. Ellie was cleared, and the fountain made too much ambient noise for anyone to hear them anyway.

Chuck scanned the icons. "Documents, documents, schematics, documents...Pictures?"

"Hortencia sent those," said Sarah. She explained to Ellie. "Turrini managed to get the only shots we know of, of Volkoff's top agent."

"And he wasted them on a coup?" said Chuck, tapping one of the images. It blew up in his face.

"Mom?"

* * *

 **A/N2** Not quite where this episode ended in canon. I'm not sure what, if anything, I should do with Lester's gassing of the Buy More, it seems kind of pointless to me. If you have any ideas, let me know, but this may be the end of the Buy More for this story. Let me know what you think of it.


	19. Doing

**A/N** For the benefit of those who don't know, there's a Facebook group for Chuck Fanfiction, and we'd love to have some new members.

From here out the story should get a little strange. It's taken me a month to get even a little handle on where it might go. Thanks to those of you who waited.

* * *

 _"_ _I'm kissing you._ _"_

 _"S_ _omething called Project Beacon._ _"_

 _"W_ _e're the good guys_ _._ _"_

 _"Mom?"_

* * *

Chuck, Sarah, and Ellie piled into the bedroom where Chuck kept his computer. Chuck was looking at the tablet more than his route, flipping back and forth between the first new pictures of his mother that he'd seen in twenty years. "With all the people that all the governments of the world have on the case, I find it hard to believe that Turrini was the only one able to get pictures of Volkoff's agent." Sarah steered him into his chair, and he finally put the tablet down on the desk.

"What are you saying, Chuck?" asked Ellie as he brought his machine out of sleep mode, not as well-versed in the subtle nuances of spy-ese. She picked up the tablet to get her own look, now that her brother had finally let go.

"He's saying that someone's been protecting her," said Sarah, not wanting Chuck to be distracted from his goal. "Someone inside the CIA, who could intercept any images our agents managed to get." With 'master-spy Turrini' out of the picture there really weren't that many options left, and most of those were too unlikely.

"This guy Volkoff has a mole in the CIA too?" asked Ellie. Casey had, under orders, told her about the others. So many. "Are there any agents in the CIA who actually work for the CIA? Present company excepted, of course."

"Thanks," said Sarah. "Most of us are loyal, but since we've mainly been dealing with the ones who aren't since you met us, it's easy to get a skewed idea." She took the tablet and put a hand on Ellie's arm. "Come on, this will take even Chuck a while. I have to alert General Beckman."

"Actually, Sarah," said Chuck, calling up a fairly standard search engine. He typed a line of characters at lightning speed and hit 'Enter'. "I think it'll take about five minutes."

"What do you mean, Chuck?" asked Sarah, not well-versed in the subtle nuances of computer nerd-ese.

Chuck's computer beeped. "I mean," he said, "That I think it'll take less than a minute. The old Star Trek engineer gambit, works every time." The screen went black.

She must have missed that episode. Ellie seemed to be equally clueless. "The what?"

"Never tell them how long it'll really take," said Chuck. On the screen the words WHAT DO YOU NEED SON appeared.

"Who's that?" asked Ellie, feeling more and more left behind.

Chuck typed HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN PROTECTING MOM, DAD and clicked enter.

" _Our_ dad?" asked Ellie.

"Do we have another?" asked Chuck.

HOW DID YOU FIGURE IT OUT?

"How _did_ you figure it out?" asked Ellie.

Chuck looked up at Sarah. "You want to take this one?"

"Sure," said Sarah. Chuck started typing out the highlights as she talked. She pointed at the image on the tablet. "Okay, A, that picture isn't anyplace a real spy would put it. B, there are no photos of her in places where real spies _would_ put them, in our or any allied database. C, it's your mother, and your father is one of the greatest hackers in the world." Simple, really. Blazingly obvious, once you factor in the 'mother' angle.

CLEVER

"Thank you," said Chuck and Sarah together.

"He's WHAT?" shrieked Ellie. Something Casey hadn't gotten around to telling her.

I HEARD THAT

Chuck went to check his settings. "You have my microphone on?"

NO, BUT I'M IN THE SAME STATE

"That'd do it."

 _"No, it wouldn't, son,"_ said Orion from the speaker. _"Of course I have your microphone on. Hi Eleanor. Good evening, Sarah. Congratulations on the engagement."_

Sarah smiled. "You're in favor?" He'd been so against them when they first met, but she guessed that being there to save Chuck that time must have thawed him a bit. Going from 'handler' to 'fiancee' was still a bit of a leap, though.

 _"You've kept my son alive when I couldn't,"_ said Orion. She'd kept him alive too, but that wasn't what mattered. _"How could I not be in favor?"_

Old news, as far as Ellie was concerned. The engagement, at least. As for the rest, she filed those questions away for later. "You're a hacker, dad?" she asked.

 _"I wouldn't say so, Eleanor. Chuck's the hacker. I'm just a computer engineer doing what needs to be done."_

Happy engagement-mood completely gone. "Who decides that?" asked Sarah, no longer smiling.

 _"Their mother,"_ said Orion. _"I've been a spy for twenty years, but only because I had to be. I did it all for her."_

Not good enough, from Sarah's point of view. 'Her' in this case being the top agent for the world's most notorious arms dealer. True, the world hadn't blown up yet, but a little confirmation would be nice. "Why for her?"

 _"Because she's the spy,"_ said Orion. _"It's how we met."_

Chuck looked at his fiancee, standing there, if not with a satisfied look on her face, at least a not-unsatisfied look. He was used to those. "Why does that scenario sound so familiar?"

Something sounding suspiciously like a chuckle, adjusted for bandwidth limitations, came over the speaker. _"You're handling it better than me, that's for sure. I would never have done any of this if she hadn't needed me."_

A computer engineer she could trust implicitly. "Needed you for what?"

 _"Her last mission."_

Okay, 'mission' she sort of expected. Last mission, though...Sarah winced. "Oh, God."

Something sounding suspiciously like a groan, adjusted for bandwidth limitations, came over the speaker. _"You know about those?"_

She nodded. At a speaker. Who knew, maybe he had the camera on too. "Only hearsay at the moment, but what I hear said sounds pretty bad."

Ellie looked unhappy. "How bad?"

 _"Poorly-written soap opera."_

Sarah pointed at the computer. "What he said."

Chuck shrugged. "Could be worse."

 _"How?"_ Disbelief has no bandwidth problems at all.

"Could be _well_ -written. Soap operas are inherently evil, you know."

 _"I can agree with that,"_ said Orion. _"Her last mission and they send her to Russia to assassinate some crime boss."_

"How is that CIA business?" asked Sarah. And what did that have to do with Volkoff?

 _"He was an arms dealer."_

Eyes rolled. "Of course he was. No doubt she was tasked to get a list of his suppliers and customers before she deleted him, too."

 _"That's when she called me. Her target was using bleeding edge technology to keep his empire hidden. Still is. Haven't found the damn thing yet, and we've been trying for twenty years."_

Abandonment. Abandonment. Betrayal. Abandonment. The Buy More. "Yeah, dad, we know how long you've been trying."

 _"Blame Roarke, don't blame me. Every time I got close to Volkoff, Roarke's goons would show up and I'd have to blow up my lab again. And did I mention Volkoff's obsessive upgrading? Made me start from scratch each and every damn time."_

Chuck the spy heard something Orion the non-spy apparently did not. "Almost sounds deliberate."

 _"Except Volkoff kept promoting your mother. Why would he do that if he suspected us?"_ Orion paused. _"Not to mention I checked. Roarke was a loose cannon in every sense."_

"So that's where you went after the wedding," said Ellie.

Deep sigh. _"I found myself wishing your mother could have been there, and realized with Roarke arrested I could operate freely. This system Volkoff's got now is the worst one yet. Could really use a good hacker's assistance. You know where I can find one of those?"_

Sarah actually raised her hand. "I do."

Chuck looked stricken. "You do?" He looked at Ellie, who looked equally flustered.

Sarah brought her hand down and pointed at the computer again. "He just said you were."

Chuck frowned down at the box. "Yeah, he did, didn't he?"

 _"Sorry, son. I thought you'd told her already, her being your fiancee and all."_

Sarah folded her arms and shook her head. If Orion couldn't see it that was his problem. "What kind of a spy would I be if he'd had to tell me?"

"Yeah, dad," said Ellie. "You should see them talk, all half-sentences and grunts. And forget card games."

"Chuck?" said Sarah.

"I didn't," said Chuck.

"Now cut that out!" yelled Ellie.

Orion waited for the echoes to fade. _"_ _So I didn't let the cat out of the bag?"_

"Oh, you did," said Sarah, "But it was a very small cat. There are a lot of hackers in the world-"

 _"Unfortunately."_

"Unfortunately, and I had already pegged Chuck as one of the better ones. Most of those are either very well-documented or pretty malicious, though, so I knew he wouldn't be one of those. I figured he was most likely the Piranha, and all you really did was solidify that guess."

"Good guess," said the P-man.

 _"My son is the Piranha? Wow. That's just...wow..."_

Chuck looked uncomfortable. "I'm not that-"

"Deep breaths, dad," said Ellie, standing up and leaning over the speaker. "In, out. And while you're at it, try using one of them to tell us what you need the Piranha to do that the Intersect can't?"

 _"Not what I need, Eleanor. It's what your mother needs."_

Chuck stood up and leaned over the speaker, just missing Ellie's head on the way. "You told mom about us? About me? How can she possibly be cleared for that?"

 _"She's your mother, son."_

"And a spy. I'd think another spy named Bartowski would have been flagged by now."

 _"Her records were never altered, so no one would connect her to me. She's still got her maiden name, and-"_

Chuck remembered his mother's maiden name, and flashed. "Disavowed?"

 _"They had to make it look good, they knew Volkoff was going to check."_

"So they turned her into a traitor?"

 _"It was supposed to be temporary, but the plan went pear-shaped right from the start. No one knows what happened, but her real records are lost and her handler was killed early on. She had no one but me to call on, so I've been backstopping her mission, not the other way around. Why do you think it took so long for me to contact you again?"_

He would have had to check with his principal, of course, but..."You contacted us? We called you, dad."

 _"Only because I allowed it. You would never have seen that image if I hadn't let it remain."_

Chuck frowned down at the speaker. "Image? As in 'one image'?"

 _"Of course it was only one image, son, how many would you need?"_

"We saw a lot of images, dad."

 _"There was only one image of your mother in the Kaminsky file, Chuck. I put it there."_

"The what file?"

 _"Kaminsky. Boris Kaminsky, one of Volkoff's lieutenants. Isn't that what you're calling about?"_

"No, dad. We didn't see that file yet. We got some pictures from Alejandro Goya as part of a different investigation entirely."

 _"Someday you'll have to tell me how that happened, but that doesn't matter now. It looks like Kaminsky's gone off the reservation about something and Volkoff sent your mother to deal with it. That's when I got the image. Sorry about the come-hither look, but it was the only image she let the cameras get."_

Chuck closed his eyes. "Please don't tell me..."

 _"Tell you what? That it's been twenty years? You know that. Whenever your mother travels she lets me know and we...get together."_

Ellie grinned at Sarah, because it was just too _ewww!_ to grin at Chuck. "Is that what they're calling it these days?"

 _"You hush. The problem is, the more important she gets in his organization the less he allows her out of the country. So it's been a while. I told her what you kids have been up to, and she decided you could help with her mission."_

"Which happens to be our mission."

 _"Exactly,"_ said Orion. _"Better get yourself a pencil, you're gonna need to write this down."_

* * *

 **A/N2** Very talky, I know, but it talks about a lot of stuff. I'm tying together three different plots here, while trying to explain Mary's long absence. I have no idea what Morgan and Casey are doing right now either. Hopefully I'll find out by next chapter. Let me know what you think of it.


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N** For the benefit of those who don't know, there's a Facebook group for Chuck Fanfiction, and we'd love to have some new members.

This chapter has taken a long time, hasn't it?

* * *

 _"_ _Someone's been protecting her_ _."_

 _"I did it all for her._ _"_

 _"She's your mother, son_ _._ _"_

 _"_ _You're gonna need to write this down_ _."_

* * *

"Hey Casey," said Chuck brightly, as Casey came down the stairs to castle. "Enjoy your weekend?"

Grunt. Step. "Outdoor environment..."

Step. "Lots of cigars..."

Step. "Open bar..."

Floor. "And lots of idiots with an endless appetite for stories about bigger idiots." He made a noise with his mouth that wasn't exactly a grunt, as he crossed the floor to the main ops table. "Yeah, I guess you could say that." He stared distrustfully down at a paper-wrapped parcel in his favorite chair. "What's this?"

"A gift from the Generalissimo," said Sarah. "Cigars to replace the one you gave him." Casey growled appreciatively, and sat in the next chair over. Sarah pressed a button. "General? Whenever you're ready." Seconds later the monitor lit with General Beckman's office, and the General herself. She was busy writing something, her presence at the moment making this an official meeting, but not one that she was running.

"So what do we got?" asked Casey, acting as Beckman's proxy. "Anything on Volkoff from that stuff Goya sent _you_?" He put a hand on his package, stoking it lightly.

"Ehhh, not from the documentation," said Chuck, watching Casey's hand. "Volkoff is too smart to leave breadcrumbs, even if Goya isn't. Good thing for us Turrini wasn't thinking like a spy." He pressed a button and the bottom of the screen loaded with photos of a woman, looking very much a cat to Goya's mouse.

Casey called up a small screen closer to his face, for a closer inspection. "Who is she?"

Chuck felt the pressure of Sarah's foot against his leg, under the table. He pulled his hands away from the keyboard, the sudden absence of typing noises drawing Casey's attention. Chuck looked at Casey directly, not his computer. "She's Volkoff's right-hand man, the agent negotiating the sale, and...my mother."

Beckman put her pen down, fully attentive to the meeting. Casey studied the photos more closely. Not really seeing a lot of resemblance there. "Your mother works for Volkoff?"

Head shake. "My mother works for the CIA."

Beckman seemed dubious, which was understandable. "She's a spy?"

"Surprise?" said Chuck.

"No, not really," said Casey. "Your father was Orion, seems kind of inevitable, really. Like father, like son?"

"More than you know," said Sarah, covering for Chuck while he hunkered down behind his screen. A picture went up, of a younger version of the same woman, the sort of image used in official government records. "Her code name is Frost. Orion's backing her."

Now Beckman looked downright displeased. "On what?"

"Her last, final, one-more-and-then-I'm-out mission." The two NSA officers winced.

"With Orion involved? No wonder she's been missing for twenty years," said Casey. He looked at Sarah, not Chuck. "So our mission is overlapping hers?" He didn't sound happy. That would give her mission precedence.

"Worse," said Chuck, not looking up. "Her mission is overlapping ours. Dad was trying to contact us when we contacted him."

"Meaning what?" asked the General.

Chuck looked up at her tone. He sort of had to. "Meaning that Dad told her about us, me, the Intersect and everything, and now she wants us to backstop her mission too. Apparently she needs to be in three places at once, or, and I quote, 'bad things will happen'."

Casey glanced at his superior. "Who defines bad?"

Chuck shrugged. "After twenty years on the case I'd say she does."

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

"Blue team, fall in!" Morgan ran for his position like he'd been training for the last few weeks. No one wanted to be last, especially not him. As the newest, rawest recruit he'd been getting a lot of s...tuff dumped on him already. All in good fun, of course, part of the whole squad dynamic. He knew the drill from all his game playing, a benefit of the many hours of practice he brought to the table. This time around no one was last, or several people were last together, depending on how the sergeant chose to look at it.

This time he looked pleased. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a mission."

* * *

In Castle...

Twenty years on a CIA case. Not good enough for Casey. "General?"

"Are you sure Goya's documents are of no use?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Chuck, more briskly. "Physical locations exist, with no paper trail to connect them to Volkoff. No bills of lading, no manifests, no accounts. Wherever he keeps his books, it's beyond even my father's ability to find. That's one of the missions they need us for, me in particular."

Beckman nodded. The Intersect made Agent Bartowski a formidable cyber-specialist. "Given that we have nothing to go on of our own, it would probably be best to follow her lead for now. What are the other places your mother needs to be?"

Sarah took over. "Orion sent us a set of documents he called the Kaminski file." Up went a picture of Kaminski himself. The picture of Frost that Orion had included in it was kept unrevealed, since it was a bit too revealing. "Boris Kaminski is, or more likely was, a lieutenant of Volkoff's who has apparently struck out on his own." More pictures went up, of some obviously dead people.

"Volkoff won't like that," said Casey, noting Volkoff's own name in the descriptions of the victims. "I'm guessing one of the places Frost needs to be is wherever this Kaminski character is."

"You'd guess wrong," said Chuck. "Volkoff has assets he uses for this sort of thing, and he's given Frost orders to use them. We need to stop those assets, deal with Kaminski, and assist Frost with her efforts inside Volkoff's HQ."

That was three. Keeping the CIA's name out of it would have made it four, but it was a given most of the time. "Assets, huh? Sounds like a team to me," said Casey. "We could be stretched pretty thin."

"Did Agent Frost give us any specifics on these assets of hers?" asked the General.

"Sure," said Chuck, and he put a picture up on the screen, three rough-looking thugs, looking at home in a war zone somewhere. "Packard, T.I., and Mackintosh," he said, adding a few labels, but he stopped at Casey's chuckle.

"I stand corrected, General," said Casey. "We won't be stretched thin at all. I can use the LA field office on this one."

"I thought you said their peak performance was in watching Agent Walker swim."

"And I stand by my statement," said Casey, ignoring Sarah's sudden blush. "But they should be competent enough for this job." He gestured contemptuously at the screen. "I threw these goons into the stockade myself, and they've been coming after me ever since. I could put a Beastmaster on Craigslist and they'd be here tomorrow."

"You think you can pull them away from Volkoff for revenge?" asked Chuck. "They have to know what Volkoff does to people who do that, they're the ones doing it. He's got to have more than one team for that."

"I know that, and you know that," said Casey. "Those guys, maybe not. Revenge probably wouldn't overcome their good sense, if they have any, but I've got something more potent than revenge to count on, to get them to come after me."

"What's that, Colonel?"

Casey held up his hand. "Greed."

"You call your hand Greed?" asked Chuck. "What's the other one, Envy?" The General and Sarah, caught by surprise, couldn't quite hold back ladylike snorts of amusement.

Greed clenched into a fist. "Shut it, Bartowski. It so happens the reason I threw those clowns in the stockade was because they turned on me, while we were busy stashing a pallet of Iranian gold in a rigged bunker."

"They turned on _you_?" asked Chuck.

"That _was_ stupid," said Sarah.

* * *

En route...

Morgan sat in the back of the truck as it bounced and rolled to wherever it was going, his rifle held in the approved fashion, even if it was just a glorified flashlight with a sound card. He turned to Bravo Six and shouted, "So what's a special?"

Six kept his voice down as much as he could and still be heard. "A mission with no parameters, like they don't know what's going on before they send us in," he said bitterly.

That sounded like a normal day back at the buy More. For a second Morgan wondered what poor slob had taken over for him, but decided he didn't want to know. His new job was much more fun. "We hate those?"

"We hate those," said Six. "The customer has a cause and maybe Verbanski has to care about it, but we don't. My loyalty is to you and to him and to them, and to her. You know what we like? Missions where we know what the hell's going on before we walk in the door, so we can set 'em up and take 'em down with no losses. We like missions where we don't have to make it up as we go along. We like missions where everyone gets a chance to play."

 _War isn't a game, moron_ , growled Casey in Morgan's ear. "And how many of those do we get?"

"Not enough," said One, who didn't mind a little grumbling as long as he could turn it to good advantage. Like Grimes was doing. "And even if we did, you know what they say about battle plans."

"Yeah, I know," said Morgan. "So this sort of training mission is a good thing?"

"Sure, if you look at it that way," grumped Six. "Spoilsport."

One sat back, satisfied.

* * *

In Castle...

Grunt. "Greed makes smart people do stupid things, like watch my gun when I'm going for my knife. Not enough true patriots in this world, I'd rather deal with them any day, even if they're the enemy. Point being, Those yahoos want that gold, they need my hand to get it."

"Let me guess. Crappy non-biometric handprint scanner?" asked Chuck.

"It was 1999, in the field, so don't get all tech-snob with me," said Casey.

Chuck rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine."

"That said, yeah, it's a crappy non-biometric handprint scanner. They wouldn't need the rest of me, which would suit all four of us just fine."

"Well, that gives us the basics of a plan, provided you don't go around leaving full hand prints anywhere." Not that Chuck thought for a moment that this group would go for a covert method like that. Mackintosh was an electronics specialist, and could possibly beat Casey's security, but he'd be outvoted by a guy who liked to beat people up, and a guy who dealt with explosives.

Casey shrugged. "Too many hand scanners in this line of work. I do a full sweep of the entire apartment every other weekend, but I can do another one tonight, no problem. After that I have a few cockroaches to squash. What are you gonna be doing?"

"Kaminski's going to England, so I'm going to England..." said Sarah.

"And I'm going to be figuring out _why_ she's flying to England," said Chuck. "And after she's done whatever she has to do there, the rest will be up to mom."

"And you, unless you want your significant other to spend the next twenty years in Russia. Like father, like son."

Agent Carmichael raised his head, pinning Casey with his gaze. "Call it incentive."

* * *

Somewhere out in the boonies...

Blue team disembarked from their trucks in good order, and gathered around their leaders in the dark of a wooded area. "All right, team, I have some particulars for you now," said the sergeant.

He gestured over his shoulder. "In these woods is a suspected separatist compound. Somewhere in that compound is a man, this man..." He held out his tablet so everyone could see the face of the target. "His name is Colin Davis and he's a terrorist. he has with him the code for a computer virus that can destroy the world in under a minute."

"Who makes these things up?" muttered someone unidentifiable.

"Quiet," snapped the sergeant. "The narrative doesn't have to make sense as long as our orders are clear and achievable. We just have to get the virus-"

"The Doom virus," said Morgan, playing along.

"Close, but they're calling it the Omen. Our orders are to find davis and capture both him and the Omen."

"Piece of cake," said Bravo Six.

"The cake is a lie," said the sergeant. "Out there in these woods is Red Team, and they're looking for the same damn thing, so lets hustle people."

Morgan got to hustling, keeping his inner monolog to himself. _Red Team_ , he misquoted. _Why did it have to be red Team?_

Alex' team.

* * *

 **A/N2** It'll be a miracle if I can make this work. A comment of support would be nice.


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N** For the benefit of those who don't know, there's a Facebook group for Chuck Fanfiction, and we'd love to have some new members.

* * *

 _"Enjoy your weekend?_ _"_

 _"_ _Who defines bad?_ _"_

 _"_ _Greed_ _._ _"_

 _"_ _The Doom virus_ _."_

* * *

Morgan Grimes moved his foot forward cautiously, trying to maintain his squad's line of advance. Damn woods. This was so much easier in the urban environments, where there weren't, like, a _zillion_ twigs just waiting to snap the second you put your foot down. He used the toe of his boot to clear a little space, and shifted his weight forward.

 _Snap!_

"Bang! You're dead," whispered Swan in his ear.

Having her hovering over him didn't help. The Force (if by 'Force' you meant a temptation to have a quote accidental misfire unquote) was strong with this one. He hopped up onto a convenient stone. No twigs there.

 _Snick_ , went the inconvenient pebble.

"Bang, you're de-ead," Swan whispered in a sing-song fashion.

"Cut that out," he growled. _Easy for her to mock, she was walking in all the places where he'd just crushed the twigs._

"Okay," she said, far too agreeably. "Next time it'll be Six who buys it."

 _Nuts!_ thought Morgan, unable to come up with a counterargument because there wasn't one. _And I don't even know what that means!_ He leapt off his rock to a patch of bare earth, and moved forward soundlessly into the woods.

* * *

Elsewhere, in Burbank...

"Can't I just post a Beastmaster on Craigslist?" asked Casey. His plan had the virtue of simplicity, and with the LA office types that was important. They were good at 'simple'.

 _"We need_ _Volkoff's team_ _to move fast,"_ said Chuck, busy working his own part of his father's scheme back in Castle. 'Faster than an Internet sale' being implied. Regardless of the product.

"You have no idea how fast those things move, do you?" said Casey. "I'm just saying that the whole 'fake my death' thing sounds like a play from one of Grimes' videogames, is all." Complete with a fake funeral, not to mention his uniform. Some rituals should be sacred. He looked around the church he was in and saw it decorated for a lie.

 _"Okay, a), ask your daughter how she feels about Morgan's strategies..."_ said Chuck.

 _Nuts!_ thought Casey, unable to come up with a counterargument because there wasn't one. Even the swing over the bottomless crevasse (really just a 20-ft drop, max) had worked, including the kiss on the cheek 'for luck'. Their luck, anyway. He still wasn't sure what it was for himself.

Chuck, unable to hear Casey's internal monologue (which consisted mostly of grunts anyway), kept up his own. _"And b) your obit will have a lot more keywords for whatever search algorithm t_ _hey_ _have running on you. Not to mention I don't even know if there is a Craigslist in England, or Russia, or wherever the hell they are."_

Neither did Casey. "Got me there." And Macintosh would have a search running on him, and a soon-to-be-cremated vault key would bring them running. "I don't know, it just seems like a bad TV plot device."

 _"It is,"_ said Chuck, who watched a lot more TV than his partner. _"_ _It's also a good TV plot device_ _. Tropes are tropes for a reason."_

"Yeah, to get the plot moving before the first commercial break," said Casey. " If they're not used cleverly the marks will see the third act coming a mile away."

 _"This is clever..."_ Chuck sounded insulted.

"I'll take Packard's word for that." Casey ended the call, pondering ways to be clever.

* * *

Sarah Lisa soon-to-be-Bartowski ambled through the airport concourse, waiting for her low-grade commercial flight to England. _Somebody's_ midnight flight across country, however necessary and successful it may have been to his mission, to her survival, had to be paid for, and the bill had ultimately come out of the CIA's quarterly transportation budget, so...she had to coach it.

All things considered, it was the least she could do. Chuck had seen more potential in it, but then, when didn't he?

One debarkation lounge started filling with people, a reasonably happy noise, and she paused to drink it in. Then she saw it. Some happy husband with his happy family made the mistake of checking his wallet once free of the crowd, a giveaway to every sneak thief. Of course there was one, a young man standing by the window where he had no business being, who had been pretending to watch the plane. It's where she would have been, once upon a time, or her father. Not his favorite technique, but he'd do it, if he was low on cash and needed to make a quick score. She pulled out her phone and quick-swiped it to take video. She watched the young man merge with the crowd, make his pass, do his pull. She sent an email.

On his way out the door, the young thief saw a beautiful blonde rush in, right past him. She brushed by him, not seeing him at all. An easy pull, if he'd had a chance to scope her out first. A hot babe like her, he would have taken his time with that.

Sarah kept her love-filled expression on her face as she bypassed the happy husband, slipping the wallet she taken from the thief into his jacket pocket. Once past him she must have seen that the object of her affection wasn't there, because her face fell and she turned around, walking out of the lounge, one face among others.

As she approached her own destination, the embarkation lounge for her flight to England, she saw the thief being frisked. Airport security found no wallet, of course, but that didn't mean anything, since these punks sometimes worked in teams. They had video proof of this guy, caught in the act, and they'd get any of his accomplices, you bet they would.

Sarah went into her lounge and sat in one of the hard plastic chairs, waiting for her flight to be called. She picked up a magazine and started reading.

* * *

In DC...

Clyde Decker stood up from the moderately comfortable chair he'd been sitting in when the aide said, "The General will see you now." About damn time, too. He had better things to do than play courier.

He opened the door and carefully shut it behind him, but could take no more than a step into the room before the General herself was up and out of her chair. "Agent Decker. I've heard of you." Her tone of voice betrayed no indication whether that was a good or a bad thing.

His reputation wasn't earned for courier service. "General," said Decker, neutrally. He tried for another step.

"Some top-level information has come into our possession," Beckman continued, picking up a drive from her desk. "Rogue nukes in our own backyard. The immediate threat has been dealt with, obviously I can't say how, but the follow-up is more your bailiwick than ours, so I'm passing it along, in the spirit of inter-agency cooperation." She walked over and handed it to him.

He accepted it with all due solemnity, not a smirk in sight. Those were the best kind. _'Our bailiwick', my ass._ Federal agencies played in each other's sandboxes all the time. _They got nothing._ "Thank you, General. Naturally, anything we're able to glean from it will be passed back in the same spirit." Just to rub their noses in it.

"I know it will," said Beckman, her smirk matching his in every way. It had taken Chuck an hour to determine the data was valueless. She wondered how long it would take for the rest of the CIA to figure that out. "Good hunting."

It was a polite dismissal, but still a dismissal. "Thank you, General. I'll see myself out."

* * *

In the woods...

Alex McHugh stepped forward into a cleared space she'd made for herself. _Snap._ Dammit, she'd missed something. After a brief pause, she snapped, "Well?"

"Uh...bang, you're dead," said the man behind her.

She growled, in her dainty, feminine, Casey-esque way. "I swear to God, Harris, if you're staring at my ass again, the next bang will be real, but it won't be me who's dead." She turned her best dainty, feminine, Casey-esque glare on him, and he paled. "Do we have an understanding?"

Harris cleared his throat. "You're delaying your team's advance, recruit."

What Alex wouldn't have given to have Swan within arm's reach, for so many, many reasons. Not Harris, for one. "Good." She kicked a rock, sending it crashing into the bushes and dead leaves.

Harris was staring at her face. "Bang. You're dead."

Alex smiled. "Better."

* * *

Much later, on a secure conference call...

"Damn bitch wouldn't let me get two steps into the room," fumed Decker. He couldn't plant a single bug. Sure, she probably had her office swept a couple of times a day, like he did, but they might have gotten _some_ thing.

"Your reputation must have preceded you," said A. "What was on the drive?"

"What I expected," said C. "Goya's files, documents concerning the acquisition of the nukes from Volkoff. Must have been something she held back, 'inter-agency cooperation' be damned. Our analysts haven't found anything useful in the information provided so far, and we all know they won't, but Walker and Casey are both off the radar. There's only one known name from the LA branch, and they're traveling in."

"The LA office?" said A with a laugh. "I think we can discount them."

"What's Bartowski doing?" asked B, never one to chuckle. It was unprofessional.

"No idea," said Decker. "He's burning up the bandwidth but he's put up full shields. We can't get through to see what he's working on."

"He's a Buy More geek," snarled E.

"He's a Buy More geek with the Intersect in his head and agent's training," said Decker. "The good thing is, if anyone can slip past Volkoff's defenses it'll be him."

"It's getting on my nerves," said E, who liked all his rows and columns to align just so. Only in his dark dreams did chaos run free.

"There's a bonus right there," said C, who may have needed E for his expertise but made no claim to like the man. They weren't in this business to like each other. "I'm not happy about it myself, but if we could predict how he'd do it we wouldn't need him."

"It's not enough to watch the target," said B. "When Bartowski gets there, we need to know what tools and allies he's picked up along the way."

"We will," said Decker. "There's only one archivist that Beckman trusts with Bartowski's reports. He thinks he's secure in his underground fortress, but I'm going to prove him wrong, and he'll never even know it."

* * *

Sarah was flipping through the magazine idly, when a woman sat down on the other side of the magazine table. She also sorted through the stack of magazines, but without finding anything of interest. Glancing at the photos Sarah was herself glancing at, the woman asked, "Are you done with that?"

Apparently surprised, Sarah slapped the magazine closed. "Oh, yes," she said with a smile, handing it over. "I call this sort of thing 'wedding porn'. I could never afford the dresses they show here."

"Obviously not," said the woman, noting the twist-tie on Sarah's finger. She flipped open the magazine, swiping the chip out that Sarah had slipped in, putting it into her own pocket as she talked. "Still, a girl can dream, I suppose?"

"Oh, _I do_ ," said Sarah, and laughed.

The woman, lacking any rings on her finger, rolled her eyes. "Gee, never heard that one before." Just then, the announcement was made to commence boarding. The woman tossed the magazine down. "Have a nice flight," she said, and walked away.

* * *

That night...

"You ready, Dad?" asked Chuck. "I'm about to go in." Her scanned his clothes, ratty gear from a secondhand store.

 _"Of course I'm not ready, son, what father could be?"_ said Orion. _"Until you open a crack for me you'll be in there on your own. If I didn't need some of the tools I know they have here, I'd never have told you about this place."_

"Don't worry about me, Dad, the Piranha eats geeks like these for breakfast."

 _"While the Piranha is busy eating geeks, just you make sure that Agent Carmichael is prepared for all the guys with the guns, otherwise_ Sarah _will be the Piranha and_ I'll _be the little fish."_

"Not gonna let that happen, Dad." Chuck got out of his vehicle, locked down with every CIA trick going, since he wanted it to stay intact in spite of this neighborhood. He ducked into an alley between two old factories, and put on a ratty hat and hoodie to match the clothes, before sliding up to a rusted door.

Someone opened it, not at all careful about hiding his weapon.

Chuck had no problem looking a little nervous. "Hi," he stammered, "I'm here about a job?"

* * *

 **A/N2** Let me know what you think of it.


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N** For the benefit of those who don't know, there's a Facebook group for Chuck Fanfiction, and we'd love to have some new members.

Finally I'm at the end of this, and some of these canon plots can be laid to rest.

* * *

 _"Bang! You're dead._ _"_

 _"_ _I've heard of you._ _"_

 _"A_ _girl can dream, I suppose_ _._ _"_

 _"I'm here about a job?"_

* * *

Chuck stood in a room full of computers and programmers, and men with guns currently pawing through the things in his backpack. It was a good thing he didn't care about any of that cover gear, as the man with the vaguely generic Eastern European accent was giving him instructions. Best programmer, one penny, the usual. Games the P-man had left behind years ago. It's like all these bad guys watched the same bad movies.

Once the hackoff started he even pretended to follow those rules, as long as he thought the guys standing behind him could keep up with what he was really doing. Once he assessed the quality of the security measures their best programmer came up with, he ratcheted that estimation down a bit and got on with his real job.

* * *

Morgan stood in the center of the clearing, right outside the entrance to the little community that was their target. It was, strangely enough, a nudist colony, and he was the new guy, so of course the infiltration was on him. Sticks and stones under bare feet, yay. On the plus side, it was pretty dark, he slept in the nude anyway, and was not all that body-conscious at the best of times.

These were not the best of times. He was stark naked, visible in the lights of the encampment (and of course everyone had NVGs, except him, because naked), his hands not quite covering his groin. "It's not what it looks like," he said to Alex.

Because of course she was there. Red Team was every bit as good as Blue Team, and she was their new guy. Equally naked, she looked over his shoulder at Swan, who had decided for some reason to join Morgan on his mission and was blended in appropriately. The similarities ended there. Swan was well-used to using her body like a weapon, and had no reluctance in doing so, as Alex well knew. She smiled at her boyfriend. "I believe you, Morgan."

He smiled back, looking into her eyes. Nowhere else. "You do?"

"Of course," said Alex to him, before switching her focus to Swan. "If it was what it looked like, two hands wouldn't be enough. I should know."

Swan shoved Morgan to the side. "Go get the chip, Grimes. I'll hold off the enemy here."

"She's not-"

"That's an order, Grimes!"

"Try not to hurt her," Morgan said as he ran off, Alex' backup right behind him.

"Oh, I'll try," said Swan, cracking the bones in her neck theatrically. "I don't know if I'll succeed."

Alex flowed forward into an attack position. "He wasn't talking to you."

* * *

Elsewhere...

Casey lay as still as possible, doing his bit to maintain the charade of his dea-Charade! That was it. He knew he'd seen the whole 'fake your funeral' bit done in some movie or other. He wondered if Chuck had, and if so, did he remember how well it went for the guy in the coffin? At least that guy was actually dead, so it wasn't a real...fake...?

Anyway, nothing to do now except wait for the inevita-

The door cracked open, a single beam from a dim light playing over the sheet above Casey's head. He closed his eyes. "Bingo," said someone, probably Mackintosh. "Told you he'd be here."

"How do you know it's him?" asked T.I.

"Look at the size of the body," said Mackintosh. "Who else could it be?"

"Frankenstein," drawled Packard.

 _"They're here, Colonel Casey,"_ said a voice in his ear, just after the nick of time. _"Look dead."_

"And it better be him under there," growled Packard, unhappy even in success. "I had a great plan for blowing that church."

"Why waste hours rigging a church with Feds crawling all over it, when you could spend minutes breaking into the funeral home?" asked Mackintosh. Casey heard a noise like someone opening a case.

 _"Getting something out of a bag,"_ said Casey's backup. _"Looks like a circular saw."_

The saw made a noise as Mackintosh tested the power. "Easy-peasy."

"Because funeral homes are creepy-weepy," said T.I. "I'd rather face off against all of his friends in a church."

"How many could he have?" asked Packard.

T.I. kept going. "There's no blood, and I hate the smell."

 _"Incoming."_

Casey held his breath, as someone pulled the cloth from over his face. "You realize he's grey under all that makeup. He barely looks lifelike."

"He didn't look lifelike when he was breathing," said Packard.

"Red or grey, his hand will open the vault," said Mackintosh. The saw started up again. "At least this way I don't get blood all over me. Get his hand up."

T.I. grabbed Casey's arm and lifted it from the gurney, as Packard moved in with the flashlight.

Casey grabbed Mackintosh's wrist, kicking up with his legs. The cloth covering his body sailed over Packard's head, as Casey's knee hit his hand, and the light flew across the room. Casey rolled off the gurney and fell, pulling the sheet with him. Packard's sheet-covered head hit the floor hard. Mackintosh, his hand still gripped by Casey, was pulled down to hit his head on the metal gurney, hard. As he slid to the floor, Casey rose up slowly in the flickering, dancing shadows of the broken flashlight, stark naked, to face his last opponent.

T.I. couldn't stop screaming.

* * *

Meanwhile, back outside the nudist colony...

The only defense naked fighters have is whatever body part they can put in the way. All martial arts have defensive moves, not all put much emphasis on them. A fighter can wage a full-on attack, taking damage as they try to overwhelm their opponent's defenses. If they can. Alex McHugh had already battered herself against an opponent's superior defenses, and Alex McHugh tried to learn from her mistakes.

* * *

Inside the nudist colony...

Corporal Harris ran after Morgan Grimes, just seconds behind him as they ran into the largest but in the camp, which just shrieked 'Office'. The main room, with all its computers, was empty, and Harris could hear Grimes doing something in a back room. "Don't know what you think you're doing, Grimes, but you'll never find him back there." In seconds, Harris hacked a password, deciphered the filing system, and pulled up the target's assigned sector coordinates and bunk number. On his way out he shouted, "You lose, Grimes."

Only then did he realize that the noises from the back room had stopped. He ran to the door and looked in. Grimes was gone, leaving a filing cabinet and a window open behind him. "God- _dammit_!" He ran to the window and dove out after Morgan, racing to the correct sector and hut. He caught the door before it could close in his face, but he was already too late. Morgan was already standing beside the bed where 'Colin Davis' slept the sleep of the artificial, sweeping up the little drive labeled 'Omen Virus'.

"Give it to me, Grimes," said Harris. "You'll never get past me out this door and there are no windows."

Morgan looked around, and sagged. "God-dammit."

"Yeah, that's what I said," said Harris, with a smidge of respect. "You did real good for a recruit, though. I can't figure how you got here before me."

"Filing cabinets," said Morgan. "The one that gets used most never closes right, so you go for that first. Management-fu."

Harris smirked. "I'll have to remember that, thanks..." He held out a hand. "But you lose."

Morgan walked over and slapped something hard into Harris' palm.

* * *

Outside the camp...

Alex aimed a spinning kick up high, but she was too short, and Swan simply pulled her head back out of range. This left her off-balance, unable to dodge the sweep down low that brought her to the ground. Alex caught her head, of course, not wanting to really hurt anyone, but before Swan could take advantage she got slapped in the chest with something hard. Looking down, she noticed a tranq dart lying on her chest. Her head fell back into the dirt. "God-dammit."

"Do us both a favor and stay down," said Alex, and she ran off into the camp. A quick spin through the office aimed her at Davis' bunk, but when she got there all she saw was her backup, sitting on the bed, having shoved the mannequin onto the floor. "What the hell happened?"

"Your boyfriend happened," said Harris, tossing her something.

She caught it, a tranq dart like the one she'd left on Swan. "God-dammit," she muttered. "I should have known he'd think of this." Like she had. Probably thinking of the same movie, too.

Harris shoved at the mannequin with his foot. "A little heads-up would have been nice."

"Well, look at the bright side, Harris," said Alex, with a sigh. "You got close enough for this to be needed, and for it to work, and I did take Swan down." She tossed the dart back. "Same way, too."

Harris caught the dart and shook his head. "You guys are made for each other."

* * *

At the warehouse...

Chuck leaned against the door of the electrical room, where the bad guys, whatever lame name they collectively had, stored the more solid items in their inventory. "Uh, dad, guys, anybody? I'm in trouble," he shouted into the air. "Could use a little help here." He could easily save himself, but he'd have to sacrifice the tech to do it. The backpack was back in the main room, and he didn't want to go back there to get it. If his father said he needed it that was a good reason for not leaving it behind.

 _"Yeah, yeah,"_ said Casey. Something exploded just outside the door, and a lot of bullets were fired. For a little while, and then suddenly no bullets were being fired. Chuck opened the door to see his partner blocking the exit.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch," said Casey. " _My team_ and I were in the neighborhood."

"What are you doing here?" asked Chuck, keeping his voice low, so Casey's team didn't hear too much of it. The side-mission to retrieve the tech was unplanned, so his call for help was equally unplanned. Casey's response was completely unexpected, but it could have been worse. Thank God Sarah wasn't around to hear it. She'd have had the plane turn around, land outside, and then come out to rescue him just so she could kick his ass for needing to be rescued.

Casey was oblivious to all the subtext in Chuck's head. "Saving your bacon, like usual."

"What about your mission?"

"What about it?" asked Casey. "Packard and his bunch practically jumped into my trap." He took out a cigar and put it in his mouth proudly, unlit.

"Don't you mean my trap?" asked Chuck, a little stung. Not that the timing was right in any way for this to have been the outcome of his little surprise.

"Nah. You plan traps like you plan wedding proposals," said Casey with a casual wave. "It was just a cover for my trap. I figured they'd see through yours pretty easily, so I just had to see through theirs. That wasn't too hard either, and I got a little bit of good luck, which never hurts. T.I.'s afraid of zombies, who would have guessed?" Casey looked over his shoulder at some agents Chuck couldn't see, and who therefore couldn't see him. "You lot, scram. Good work." He said, "Even they couldn't miss in these close quarters," so only Chuck could hear it.

Once the exit was clear Casey let his partner leave the room, leading the way back to his ride. He looked down. "What you got there?"

Chuck held up his stolen tech. "I have no idea."

"You know who does?" asked Casey, in a tone used by those who know the answer but hope they're wrong.

"My dad," said Chuck, torn between feeling sorry for throwing his father under the bus, while at the same time hoping it worked.

Casey growled at that. "He doesn't know Walker very well, does he?"

* * *

 **A/N2** So I let my OCs have a little more screen time than I normally do, but I had to do something to make this hodgepodge of story elements work. Let me know what you think of it.


	23. Undoing

**A/N** For the benefit of those who don't know, there's a Facebook group for Chuck Fanfiction, and we'd love to have some new members.

This chapter has taken a long time, hasn't it? It's mostly a combination of Aisle of Terror, with Masquerade and The Curse, both of which were pretty crappy episodes. It's got some other stuff too, but that's a long-burning fuse.

* * *

 _"_ _It's not what it looks like_ _._ _"_

 _"_ _There's no blood, and I hate the smell_ _._ _"_

 _"_ _What the hell happened?_ _"_

 _"He doesn't know Walker very well, does he?"_

* * *

"Verbanski detonated him?" Morgan crawled through the ductwork, trying to imagine that in a non-cinematic, real-world sort of way. He was, unhappily, becoming good at that. "That's messed up."

"Not as messed up as failing to accomplish a mission objective," said Red Five, who was not Alex, nor anyone named Luke.

"Got me there." Mission objectives are like dominoes. One snafu and the whole plan could fall apart. Squad-mates could get hurt or killed, and he wasn't about to let his scruples put that on his conscience.

Red Five sniffed, muscling through the metal tube after Morgan, envying the recruit's smaller size. "Which is why we're here, I suppose."

"Hey, it's a plan within a plan," said Morgan. "Verbanski was complimentary." He stopped at the metal grille. "Okay, from here on out it's gonna be offices, storerooms, a whole false front. You ready?"

"I was born ready."

"You must have saved them a fortune on training." Morgan pushed the grille out, and saw Verbanski standing there, glaring at him. He pulled the grille shut, and looked back at his rescuee. "We may be trapped."

The grille pulled out of his hands. "I _thought_ the rest of your squad was sandbagging," said Gertrude. She waited until the two men climbed out of the duct and were standing in front of her. She checked her watch. "Time is...T minus 1 minute."

That made it official. "Yes!" Morgan fist-bumped Red Five. None of the other teams saved the hostage early.

Verbanski was still in official mode. "You know, when you mentioned this plan to me I don't think I heard you say anything about going in early."

"Sorry, I thought that was implied by 'combat conditions'," said Morgan, settling back into parade rest. "Unless we're waiting for the enemy's permission to infiltrate now."

"We don't, as a rule," said Verbanski, with a smile. They heard the sound of the buzzer, indicating the end of the exercise. They could also hear the jeering and cat-calling of the other teams over Blue Team's poor performance.

 _"Hey. Where's Grimes?"_

Verbanski waved them on their way. "Time for you to go rescue your squad."

* * *

In Echo Park...

The clothes came off the body and into a bag, the bag went outside by the dumpster for some person to find. On the way back from the dumpster Chuck decided to sit by the fountain, rather than return to a room where Sarah wasn't. He looked up at the sky, wondering what part of it she was in right now.

* * *

Somewhere over the Atlantic...

Sarah Walker woke up, her Chuck-sense tingling.

She looked out the window, but he wasn't there sitting on the wing. Crap. She pulled out her phone, and checked the time. Post-mission back in Echo Park. He'd still be up. She touched an app, placing her finger over the print scanner on the back.

* * *

Echo Park again...

Chuck's phone chimed, and he checked the screen. The words 'I love you' were shining from the screen, getting dimmer before brightening again. Slow and steady. Chuck touched his own pulse, still not as slow in rest as Sarah's was.

He touched the back of his own phone.

* * *

Over the Atlantic (it's like ping-pong)...

Sarah's phone started to pulse with Chuck's return message. For a second she smiled, but then she realized how fast the words were cycling. Why was his heart beating so fast, at that hour of night? His part of the mission shouldn't have been that hard.

What was going on back there?

* * *

Echo Park...

Chuck's phone rang. He stared at it for a second, wondering why Sarah would be calling him now. From a plane. Unless it landed already. No, too soon for that. Did it crash? Duh, obviously not. So why would she...? His heartbeat. It was too fast! He touched his wrist again. Too slow? What was he in trouble for this time?

The phone rang again, and this time he noticed the screen, which didn't show Sarah's name. Oh. He accepted the call. "Hello?"

"Hello, Chuck, it's...your mother."

* * *

Verbanski Corp HQ...

The big man sat at his desk, alone in the outer room that fronted the Boss' office. It was dark, it was quiet, and he was alone. He didn't mind solitude, it gave him time to write his poetry.

He was also aware when that solitude was broken, when the shadows in his mind shattered and scattered. Oo, that was good, he wrote that down.

He walked through the office, seeking what didn't belong. He could feel it moving, like a partner in a dance of...hmm, what would be a good metaphor? Or is that a simile? He turned around.

A female non-com stood there, right in front of him, out of uniform. He still recognized her. "Corporal Swan? What are you doing up here? This is a secure area."

"I was looking for Miss Verbanski."

"She's in the fitness center, at the ceremony."

"Oh. Well, in that case I'll be on my way."

"Wait a minute, you're supposed to be at the ceremony too." She wasn't even dressed for it. "You stay right here." He reached for her card and found himself almost groping her. "Where's your ID?"

"Right here." She pulled something flat and rectangular out of her pocket and handed it over, holding it carefully by the edges. He seized it, thick fingers squeezing the middle of the card as he brought it up to get a look, not noticing that she was stepping back, holding her breath.

Suddenly he was nauseous, trembling and weak as he collapsed to the floor, dropping her 'ID' as he did.

Swan put a garbage can over the fallen card. "Insidious, no? Sorry about that, well, not really, but I need to get into the office and you were in my way."

"I...don't...have...key..." gasped the guard.

"Oh don't worry," said Swan, stepping over his convulsing body. "I already have that." She swiped a card through the reader and entered a code. "They don't call me the Viper for nothing."

He didn't hear her.

* * *

Still VCHQ, but a few minutes earlier, down in the fitness center...

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming," said Gertrude, "Especially since it was mandatory." That always got a laugh. "While we often see new recruits join the ranks, and promotions among the ranks, it isn't often that we get so many of them all at the same time. First, we have our two new recruits, Alex McHugh and Morgan Grimes, who have completed their training and will be joining their respective companies as privates." Red and Blue Companies made a lot of noise, with Yellow joining in because why not.

"As some of you know, Private McHugh defeated Corporal Swan in physical combat, so she will be specializing in combat instruction." Red Company shouted approval.

"Private Grimes has distinguished himself with his unusual techniques and unorthodox stratagems, so he will be specializing in tactics and C&C for Blue Company." Morgan's team went wild. "That company, sad to say, will no longer include Corporal Swan, who resigned her position this afternoon. So we are also celebrating the promotion of Corporal Harris from Charlie Team in Red to Bravo Team in Blue." Much polite applause ensued, but that got stepped on when a number of phones started signaling at very high volume.

"Ma'am, your office!"

"Antonia, take over here. Block all exits." She pointed at Bravo Team, closest to the door and to her. "You guys follow me."

They piled into the nearest stairwell, faster and safer than the elevator. They had their pistols, but they also knew that discharging their weapons inside the city would bring the only thing they feared more than an armed enemy down on their heads: paperwork.

On the office level they exploded out of the door and spread out to support their commander as she led the approach to her own office. The dead guard was spotted, the overturned garbage can noted, and both given a wide berth.

Verbanski swiped her card and entered the code.

Gunfire erupted inside the office, and glass shattered loudly. Gertrude led the charge into the room, racing for the nearest cover. She checked the mirrors for a target. "Swan?"

The former corporal stopped at the window, one hand holding a small data drive. Gertrude took aim, and Swan raised her other hand, holding what appeared to be a deadman switch. "Yeah, you do that, Gertrude." With her other hand she unzipped her jacket to reveal pockets underneath containing something long and block-shaped. Assuming that was something explosive, it was more than enough to kill them all if it went off. Swan raised her hand to put the drive into her pocket.

Morgan grabbed the heavy glass insert to one of Gertrude's ashtrays and threw it frisbee-style, hitting her hand and making her drop the drive. "God-dammit!" shouted Swan, shooting Morgan a murderous glare. "You're a dead man, Grimes."

She bent down and grabbed a handle attached to a rope at her feet and jumped out the window, using the device to slow her fall and protect her hand. Verbanski and her men ran to the window to see her reach the ground. The guards on the gate were already there, weapons drawn, and Swan raised her hands.

She threw the 'deadman switch' at the guards and it exploded, leaving them gasping and twitching on the ground while Swan ran out the front gate and disappeared. Gertrude pulled out her phone. "It was Swan! She got out the front gate. Someone check on the guards. They're on the ground under my office."

Ignoring the response, she turned back to the room at large and said, "All right, let's see what she was after."

* * *

Griffith Park, one hour later...

Chuck sat on a picnic bench, trying to sense the approach of a predator. He knew there had to be at least one, and the one he knew of had been doing this a long time. They weren't about to make a mistake now. Then the crickets fell silent. His phone chirped instead, already in his hand, and he lifted it to his face. "Mom? I was wondering you were really going to show up. You've been a ghost for so long." Haunting him.

 _"_ _You know how complicated_ _my situation_ _is,"_ said his mother. _"I had to make sure we were secure."_

"Of course you did."

 _"Look to your three o'clock."_

Chuck looked, and saw the silhouette of his mother just beyond a low fence, her face barely visible. Not a dream, not a ghost. His breath caught.

 _"Meet me by the playground."_ The silhouette disappeared into the shadows, in the direction specified.

Chuck looked at his phone. Yeah, that was his mother. She never did say goodbye like a normal person. Well, normal people not named Beckman. He climbed down off of the picnic table he sat on and followed.

The playground was a frightening place by moonlight, bizarre shapes casting bizarre shadows. An easy place for a spy to get lost in, but his mother stood in the center, waiting for him, her hands in her pockets. Chuck walked up to her. "Mom. Hi."

Mary pulled a gun out of her pocket and aimed it center mass.

A hard voice growled from the spy-obscuring shadows. "Hold it right there, lady."

Mary flipped the gun up and turned her head, pulling her other, empty, hand from her pocket slowly. "There you are," she said happily.

Casey emerged from his concealment and moved forward as Chuck took the gun. "It's unloaded."

Casey didn't lower his gun, and Mary smiled. "I was hoping he wouldn't come alone just because I told him to, but I couldn't spot his backup anywhere. Didn't even hear a twig snap. You must have been doing this a long time."

"You're calling me old," said Casey. "Thank you."

Mary nodded. "Only one way to get old in this business. As long as you're not sl-" Her hand moved in a blur.

A forearm blocked her strike, but not Casey's forearm. Mary looked up at her very tall son-just like his father-with his arm extended over her head, protecting his partner's face. She hadn't heard him move either. "Oh."

"Could we please not kill each other saying hello?" asked Chuck.

She lowered hand, swinging her wrist to get the soreness out. "Very good. Your CIA partner's in England?"

Casey checked his watch, coincidentally shifting his gun's line of fire. "Should be, yeah."

"You have something for us, mom?" asked Chuck as Casey put the weapon away.

Mary shook her head. "Your father should have already given you all the information you need," she said. "The mark will be expecting you, takedown should be a piece of cake."

"Then why are we here?" said Chuck.

"I told you," said Mary, patting his cheek. "I needed to see you."

* * *

 **A/N2** She just had to go and jinx it, didn't she?


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N** For the benefit of those who don't know, there's a Facebook group for Chuck Fanfiction, and we'd love to have some new members.

* * *

 _"_ _Verbanski detonated him?_ _"_

 _"I_ _t's...your mother._ _"_

 _"_ _You're a dead man, Grimes._ _"_

 _"_ _I needed to see you._ _"_

* * *

Having made a fast getaway...

Former corporal Swan pulled her escape vehicle behind another car that in no way resembled anything she'd ever used or owned, and proceeded to steal it, so as to add yet another layer of confusion between herself and any possible pursuit. It was a part of the original plan she decided to keep. If those plans had gone off flawlessly, she would have had a significant bargaining chip with a lot of Verbanski's enemies. Until that damned Grimes gummed up the works. Again.

Now she had nothing.

Well, not nothing, but she didn't know exactly what she had so it was best not to get her hopes up, and stick to the plan. Mostly. She couldn't go home again, that's for sure. VC may not have had any authority to go kicking her door down but they knew people who did, and they might decide to use them. In the original plan they would have been sure to, having stolen something they could not allow her to just disappear with. Now she wasn't so sure.

Sooner than she would have liked (because it implied a lack of pursuit on their part which implied a lack of success on her part), she pulled her latest ride into a parking lot by a train and left it there. In the bathroom she loosened her body armor and pulled out the files that had been digging into her skin ever since she stuck them in there. On the train she found a car with no one on it and started looking over her prizes.

Verbanski's personal files, it seemed. Useful to someone who wanted to go after Gertrude herself, and there had to be quite a few of those. Research for possible missions could be useful to targets who needed to improve their defenses. Some scores, but not the payday she'd been after.

Swan opened the last file. _Who's this stud?_ She started reading.

She started to laugh. It sounded a bit unhinged, but that was alright, there was no one to hear it.

* * *

Fresh off the plane in Somerset...

Sarah wasted no time in calling Chuck's phone, even though it was early morning where she was and late at night back home. There wasn't that much foot traffic at the moment so she had to remember to keep things quiet, but she'd been wondering about his heart-rate monitor for hours now, and that was hours-minus-five-minutes too long.

The dialing sound stopped in mid-trill. That was bad. He should be sound asleep in his own bed. The phone should have rung forever. "Chuck?"

 _"Uh, no, Sarah, it's me,"_ said Orion, sounding apologetic, and she stopped in mid-stride. _"Things_ _didn't go_ _as planned."_

"I'm getting back on the plane now _right now,_ " she barked, her voice reverberating from one end of the concourse to the other.

 _"Don't do that,"_ said Orion, and Sarah suddenly imagined Chuck's voice saying 'we're all fine, here, now, how are you?' Which just made her more aware that she should have been talking to Chuck. Or not talking to him, because he was asleep. Whatever. _"We need you to deal with Kaminsky. Chuck should be back soon, he just forwarded his phone while he's taking a meeting."_

He'd better be back soon. The part of the plan that needed the Piranha was supposed to come off before she landed. She didn't mind having Orion at her back but he wasn't Chuck. "A meeting, at this hour?" There wasn't anything in the plan about meetings. "Who with, and why him?"

* * *

Griffith Park playground...

"You broke cover for that?" asked Casey. "'You needed to see him'?"

Chuck watched his mother's face lose its expression of wondrous joy, a terrible thing to see, although she didn't move her hand from his cheek. "When you're a parent you'll understand," she said in a tone implying great doubt that that would ever happen, while flashing a cold look at the side of the world with Casey in it.

"I am a parent," said Casey, shoving his gun in its holster with extra emphasis. "I'd almost rather not be."

That pulled Mary right around, furious. "How can you say that?" she snarled.

Chuck put his hand on her shoulder, stopping her before her outrage became any more physical. Not that Casey didn't deserve a good pounding for the thoughtless remark, but now was not the time. He'd give the big guy a few reminders in the dojo later. "His death was faked, Mom. Years ago. His fiancee and his daughter both think he's dead."

Mary stopped, looking at Casey while pushing Chuck's hand from her shoulder lightly, and he removed it. "Do they still?"

"Yeah," said Casey. ""I haven't seen Kath in all this time. Alex only knows me as a guy who works with her boyfriend."

"So you see her whenever she comes to see him," said Mary. "That's terrible."

Casey stood up straight, like Atlas. "Says the woman who hasn't seen her son in twenty years."

"It's easier that way. I had to miss his tenth birthday, but the first chance I get and here we are in this creepy dark playground." Mary sighed. "I couldn't do what you've been doing for twenty days, much less...however long it's been for you."

"Not that long," said Chuck. "He never knew he had a daughter until I had to send Morgan to protect her."

Casey saw an expression of astonishment come over her face, lacking only an element of disgust to match his own. "Morgan _Grimes_?" she said, turning and stepping to one side, to keep both men in view. "Why would you send him? How could he protect _any_ body?"

"He had help," said Casey, not wanting to mention anything classified.

"But it _was_ help," said Chuck. Both the laudanol and Devon were in running interference, but his bud was the guy with the football. "And it _was_ Morgan."

Casey rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, the little maggot didn't screw it up _too_ bad."

"Your daughter agrees with you," said Chuck. "Very, very much."

"Wait, wait, wait," said Mary, waving her hands. She started to smile. "Are you telling me, that Morgan Grimes has _his daughter_ for a girlfriend?"

Casey growled.

"And more," said Chuck, not above rubbing it in a little. "He was assistant manager at the Buy More-"

Mary pointed. "With him?"

"Yes, with Casey-"

"And you, Mister Nerd Herd Supervisor," said Casey. "For five years."

Chuck cleared his throat. "Yes, well, anyway, he gave that up to go to work at Verbanski Corp with Alex."

Mary stopped moving, except for her eyes, blinking slowly. "Really?"

* * *

Verbanski Corp, downstairs...

Morgan sat slumped in a chair, the picture of despair. The room was a wreck, by VC standards, which meant it was actually pretty neat, but the tables had been cleared as if a plague of locusts had struck. "It's all gone?" he asked.

Everyone around him, already in a bad mood from the assault upon their employer's office, nodded and muttered. "I'm afraid so," said the lady in charge.

Morgan spoke for his team. "I didn't even get a piece of cake, none of us did." He pointed at a plastic container in the recycling, the label clearly visible. "And Four, he loves those chocolate strawberries."

"All right, who has cake?" yelled Bravo One.

"I do, sir," yelled a couple of voices, unenthusiastically, as if they knew what was coming.

"Give it up to the man," said One. "Guy saved the company, the least he should get's a piece of his own cake."

The unfortunate cake-eaters appealed to Corporal Harris as much as they could, but he backed the order, and they went to get a clean plate.

"You saved the company?" asked Alex, under the cheering.

"I don't know," said Morgan, accepting a plate with some partially-consumed pieces of cake and a new fork. "Thanks, guys. I stopped Swan from getting away with a flash drive. Verbanski wouldn't let any of us see what was on it, so everyone's assuming the worst."

"Could'a been," said One.

"Could'a been real explosives in her pockets, too," said Six.

"Nah, that's fanatic stuff," said Morgan, taking one small bite from the cake. "And Swan was mercenary to her core. A very cold and ugly core." He offered some of his cake to Alex, looking up at Six while she ate it. "I figured they were probably those missing cigars. This guy I work with smokes these really primo cigars, so I knew the smell when we went in."

Morgan pointed to a bit of red frosting with his fork. "What's this?" he asked Alex.

"Supposed to be a rose petal," she said. "Your sergeant's a romantic and a good baker, but her decorating...?"

"Looks good to me." Morgan wiped up the petal with his finger and dabbed it onto her lips. He handed the plate off to Six before kissing the rose petal back off.

"Awwww..."

"Shut it," said One. "At least he's _got_ a girl, a now maybe some of you clunkers know why." He accepted the plate, took a small bite, and passed it on. "Somebody take a picture for the sarge."

* * *

Upstairs, at Verbanski Corp...

Gertrude had gone through all the files that Swan left open in her haste to escape, but she didn't find much. Probably cover. More likely the stuff that traitor wanted went right onto that flash drive, unopened. That way they wouldn't show up on the log.

She looked at the stick, considering possibilities. That deadman switch had turned out to be a trap, maybe this was as well. She didn't have anything here to check it with, so her IT people would have to have a look. She opened a drawer to put the thing away until tomorrow, one less thing on her plate for tonight. Then she looked down.

 _Uh-oh..._

* * *

Many hours later, in Somerset...

Sarah looked over the target site from a hill a good distance off. "Are you sure about this, Orion?" she asked.

 _"As sure as I can be, Sarah,"_ said the Bartowski patriarch. _"I sent my information to Chuck to look over before he left and he agreed that this is the most likely spot for Kaminsky to be_ _going_ _."_

It looked like a simple country estate. There were rabbits in the fields below her. "What did he see?"

 _"Nothing."_

"Nothing?" said Sarah, taking another look. "That's suspicious right off."

 _"Exactly,"_ said Orion. _"The only social presence I see for this estate in the entire lifetime of its occupant is the masked ball tonight, in support of some equestrian society."_

Sarah watched some trucks drive up, back by the kitchens. "You checked the caterer?"

 _"Of course. A very reputable firm, commonly used in the area. No new hires lately."_

They were deploying a portable generator. Clearly not a high power facility. Unless it was and they were using the generator for cover. Just then someone left the main house. "I've got movement, female, early twenties."

 _"Probably the occupant, Vivian MacArthur. I'd send a picture for verification but she has no media presence of any kind."_

Definitely a person of interest. As Sarah watched, the young woman went into a nearby barn. A short time later, and who knew what she might have been doing there, she exited the building mounted on a horse, riding easily. Equestrian society, right. "I'm moving in closer. I want to get a look at that barn."

* * *

In LA, at an outdoor cafe...

"Good afternoon, sir," said the concierge, looking a lot like Casey. "May I show you to your table?"

"You may," said Chuck, looking a lot like the sort of person who goes to places like this to make deals every day. "A reservation for Carmichael."

"Certainly, sir." Casey picked up a menu and led the way, pulling out a chair for Chuck that put his back against the wall.

"Your finest Rioja Red, please," said Chuck.

"Absolutely, sir," said Casey. He leaned in close to get the menu. "Nobody likes a smart-ass."

* * *

In Somerset...

The barn was a stable. A stall for a horse and materials for caring for said horse. No obvious signs of evil machinations. "I'm pulling back to the tree line."

* * *

At the LA cafe...

Shortly after a man matching Orion's picture of Wainwright entered the cafe, a dark vehicle spun to a stop on the other side of the street. A man got out and walked across with an arrogant and deliberate stride, entering the cafe area through the exit and avoiding the concierge desk entirely.

"That's rude," said Casey, mostly listening to Chuck being Chuck, schmoozing the twitchy scientist into a calmer and more talkative state.

Chuck was just about to get started interrogating him about the specifics of his toxin when he stopped talking and Casey looked over to his table. The rude man had stopped right next to it, saying something to the them that Chuck's microphone couldn't catch.

"I'm sorry," said Chuck calmly, "We're in the middle of some rather delicate, and I must add, confidential negotiations, so-"

The rude man compounded his rudeness by smirking, saying something to Wheelwright directly. Casey caught the word 'CIA' as Wheelwright flinched back into the rude man's hands. Casey and the rude man drew at the same time, but Casey had civilians in front of him and the rude man didn't.

He shot Chuck in the chest at point-blank range, escaping with Wheelwright in the confusion.

* * *

In Somerset...

Sarah hated the house. The trees were too far, the wall was too exposed, the barn was in the way. It was as if someone had deliberately chosen it to be hard to assault. Which also made it hard to defend, if the assault team was already inside.

A masked ball. Whose brilliant idea was that? Just asking to be invaded, plus the obvious creep factor. Sarah hated masks.

A burst of noise was her only clue. Someone leaving the house, through a door that let more music out with them. Not a caterer.

There! Shadows, men in dark clothing bent on dark deeds. She left the trees as they slipped inside the near door. She listened intently, waiting for something to cover the sound of her entry, some clue as to what the hell was going on.

"Give me the _key_ , Vivian," shouted a man, probably Kaminsky himself.

What the hell was Vivian doing out here? Wasn't this her party?

Her first party. And probably her last, if she didn't give Kaminsky what he wanted. Maybe even if she did.

A gunshot, and a horse's frightened neighing. Sarah slipped inside the stable, and saw Kaminsky and his men pointing guns not at Vivian, but at her horse. Vivian was shaking her head, no, no. No the horse, no the key, no everything about this awful, awful night.

Sarah knew it when Kaminsky started to fire his gun, and somehow Vivian did too. In the time it took him to move his finger she had put herself in harm's way, and his bullet took her in the chest.

Kaminsky and his men stopped in shock.

Sarah took aim and dropped each and every one of them, with two bullets for Kaminsky just because. She ran over the bodies to get to the victim, Vivian herself, lying in a pool of blood. "Talk to me, Vivian."

The young woman opened her eyes, breathing shallowly. "Couldn't...Artemis..."

"Your horse is fine, Vivian. What did they want?"

Vivian began to gasp. "Hurts..."

"Not for much longer, Vivian. Tell me what they wanted."

Vivian put a hand to her throat, one finger touching a locket. "Take...my father...please..." Her pleading eyes never wavered from Sarah's face as her labored breathing stopped, and failed to start.

 _Dammit!_ Sarah grabbed the necklace and tore it off, knowing any competent medical check would find the damage. She opened the door and slapped Artemis to get her running out, and ran out the other door to the cover of the trees.

* * *

Casey: "He got away", as somewhere Stanley Wheelwright knew himself to be going mad.

* * *

Frost: "They got away", as somewhere Sarah boarded a plane for the Continent, wearing a locket bearing the Volkoff crest.

* * *

Casey: "But don't worry..." as he pulled the bullet from Chuck's body armor.

* * *

Gertrude: "She'll be back."

* * *

 **A/N2** You may have guessed that this story will have no Vivian plot. A little darker than I expected but that's where the story took me.


	25. Chapter 25

**A/N** For the benefit of those who don't know, there's a Facebook group for Chuck Fanfiction, and we'd love to have some new members.

I know it's been a long time, so feel free to review if you want. I'll wait. This story has gotten very granular on me, with bits and chucks from lots of episodes all mixed together.

* * *

 _"_ _I'm getting back on the plane_ right now _._ _"_

 _"_ _Give it up to the man._ _"_

 _"_ _Give me the key, Vivian_ _._ _"_

 _"_ _She'll be back."_

* * *

An airport in Europe...

Sarah walked off the plane, moving as a left-handed person would move, alert for thieves. In the middle of a mission was neither the time nor the place to get her wallet stolen, not that she was so concerned with that particular object. She did see someone, looking at her, but he stopped when she made it obvious she'd noticed him the way he was noticing her. It probably wasn't for the usual reason, since she'd done some work during the flight to make herself look less like Sarah Walker.

Her hand went up to the locket hanging around her neck, but that was just for show. The locket on the chain wasn't the locket she'd been charged to deliver with a dying woman's last breath, although it looked similar. She had no intention of leaving the real one out where any sneak thief could reach out and grab for it. Like everything else about her, the locket she wore was a cover, in case anyone was looking for a woman wearing a locket.

But her chest had been aching for a while now, and she rubbed again at the spot, just above her heart.

* * *

In Castle...

Chuck rubbed again at the spot, just above his heart, while Casey got out a cold pack and crushed the inner bag, mixing the chemicals. Once the mix had gotten cold enough for his liking, he walked over to Chuck and slapped it against his chest.

"Ow." Chuck reached up to hold the bag in place as Casey let go.

"Man up, Bartowski," snapped Casey, walking away. "We've got two enemy agents on the loose, with or without a dangerous weapon."

"Go, team," gasped Chuck.

"That's more like it," said Casey. "Too bad your better half's not here, so I could let you go home and sleep it off while we did our jobs."

"You'd really do that?" asked Chuck.

"No. I was just wondering what it felt like to say stuff like that." Casey shifted uncomfortably.

Chuck grinned. "So how'd it feel?"

Casey's lip curled. "I didn't like it." Still, he pushed a keyboard closer so Chuck wouldn't have to lean forward to do it himself. "You get on the horn to Orion, then start checking cameras for the shooter and the car. I'll check with the team they sent to the docks and join you. You know I can't trust those guys further than I can throw them."

* * *

At the airport...

The ache in her chest went away, finally, and with it an urge to call Chuck. None of her current gear had any obvious connections to that life. Sarah turned her thoughts fully toward the next phase of her mission. She needed camouflage, more complete than what she could do in an airplane bathroom. Something to confuse whatever they used for facial rec over here.

Something to confuse the facial rec behind her own eyes. She was different, without Chuck, and she didn't like it. No way could she do this in her own face, the face he would be looking at when this was over. No way she could look in a mirror, be what she had to be, do what she had to do.

She'd had to kill those men, back in that barn, but she wasn't Agent Walker and never would be again. She'd said so in front of Casey and that made it practically a blood oath. She'd killed, but she hadn't killed them for cold, calculated, professional reasons, a first, baby-step for the Ice Queen. She'd killed them in anger, for vengeance, and now she was paying for that with remorse, with pain. She treasured that pain, let it come, let it chip away at the wall she'd built around her heart all those years ago.

* * *

On a secure conference call...

"Did we acquire Dr. Wheelwright?" asked A.

"We did," said C, "But I don't know what value he'll be to us. We drove past a Chuck E. Cheese and he totally lost it. Couldn't tell if it was a man or a rat."

"That giant rat's head is pretty scary," said B.

"It's a mouse," said A.

"It doesn't look like a mouse," snapped E, and for once C agreed with him.

"Moving on. What about the lab?" asked A, his voice indicating that he was putting Wheelwright firmly in the 'no' category. He put most assets there. Eventually.

"Crawling with agents," said C. "Someone must have given up its location, and we doubt it was Volkoff. Fortunately Wheelwright had a delivery device already loaded, maybe he expected to have to give a demonstration. Anyway, it wasn't in the lab. We have that."

"One dose of the toxin and no way to make more," summarized A. "We'll have to use that quickly, before they can develop an antidote."

"That may be a while," said C, in the smug tone of someone who'd already thought of that. "Comrade Grenade Launcher nobly sacrificed himself for the cause."

"Bravo," said E, looking forward to the evening's news coverage, such as it was. They always played it up the best.

"You realize the Soviet Union collapsed, don't you?" asked B.

"You recognize that I don't care, don't you?" said C. "Volkoff has the most obvious interest in keeping us from getting our hands on the formula. Wheelwright was his client, and the thing would be worth billions."

"Not anymore," said A, unconcerned. Let Volkoff blind himself with money, just like Fulcrum had blinded themselves with their own brand of patriotism.

"Lamentable," agreed B. "But if nothing else, the Manoosh debacle taught us not to overreach ourselves." Their attempt to use Manoosh's Intersect glasses to destabilize an entire region of the world had failed rather badly, leaving them with no glasses and the inventor working for the enemy.

They knew they were lucky, at that. Powerful weapons were brutally suppressed, if not before then certainly after, but some weapons were too powerful to ever allow to even be created. Mere possession invited destruction. Just the threat of them was enough, if it was believable. A lesson Wheelwright never learned, too bad for him. At least his quivering hulk would make the threat believable.

B sent a note to a minion. They had to get some footage before Wheelwright quivered himself to death.

"Plenty of people have reach," said A. "What matters is vision." On which they did not have a monopoly, but that was where planning and execution came in. Such a nice word, 'execution'.

"I love manipulating the foolish and the ignorant as much as the next spy," said C, who'd heard all this before, especially the vision part. "But there are times when you really just want it to be your hands holding the grenade launcher." Let that ambition soar. They couldn't, most of the time, that was their main defense. People on the lookout for soaring ambition, like, say, Alexei Volkoff's, weren't looking _down_. No one expected people capable enough to have soaring ambition to make it creep. That was for peons, or for people smart enough to piggyback their plans on someone else's ego.

"What about the gun?" asked E, reminding everyone of the other weapon C had gone out of his way to use.

"Along with some prosthetics," said C, catching the implied criticism. "If they got anything for facial rec to work with, the output will simply skew toward eastern Europe, nothing more definite than that. As will the bullet."

"Did you at least check to make sure Bartowski was wearing a vest before you shot him?" asked B. "We still need him against Volkoff."

C snorted dismissively. "If he wasn't smart enough to wear a vest to a meet in a public place, then we don't."

* * *

In Castle...

Chuck filled Orion in on the mess at the 'piece of cake' meet. Orion filled Chuck in on Sarah's progress, and future intentions, passing along a message recorded before she went dark. They had nothing definite enough to call a plan, which was why she was taking a train to give herself time. Casey still hadn't come back.

Chuck had just started searching the memories of the traffic cams by the cafe when the emergency alarm blared, the screen automatically switching over to specify the location of the beacon. Somewhere in the Port of Los Angeles area, where his mother had told them Wheelwright's portable lab was located. He switched the screen from grid to satellite view.

He saw a cloud of smoke. "Casey!"

* * *

Port authorities got there first. The NSA wasn't keen on sharing details of their operations with locals, but big smoky explosions were hard to hide, so Casey made an exception and warned them what they might be up against. It took longer for the fire department to suit up in their haz-mat gear than it did to put the fire out, so paramedics could get inside. With the exception of the one woman sent to DC in connection with Sarah's trip to England, the brave men and women of the LA field office were no more. One, standing outside the box, had survived the initial blast long enough to set off his screamer, only to succumb to his wounds, and the fumes of whatever chemicals had been stored inside.

Local authorities were mainly upset that the contents of the container didn't match the manifest, and were preparing to take legal action against the owner. Casey, knowing the LA field office, was prepared to treat it as either an accident or a booby-trap, until one of his sweeper team stumbled upon a Russian-made grenade launcher.

* * *

On a train somewhere in Europe...

Sarah moved into the dining car, her new clothing stiff and uncomfortable, throwing her a little off balance as the car rocked. She sat down as the train rolled along, ordering tea and a light breakfast from a server in a polite but cool tone, discouraging conversation. Her face was pale, her nails filed to sharp points. Her lips were colored a harsh red, in lines so sharp it seemed she would cut herself if she smiled. No one wanted to share her table as she sat, drinking tea and thinking dark thoughts behind dark glasses.

She'd had a bad first night, the train rocking and shifting and clacking along with a rhythm that reminded her of all the good things about being in bed with Chuck. She both did and didn't wish he was here, and for pretty much the same reason. The odds were good that they would spend most of the time in the sleeping car and not enough time doing anything else, like think, plan, or execute.

A door opened at the far end of the car, letting in not only the sound of the train rolling, but a high-pitched giggle, as a woman entered, followed by a man, both of them bubbling over with good humor and very little sense, broadcast to everyone else in the car in accents almost too thick to understand. "We've been on this train three days and this is the first we've ever _seen_ this car," she exclaimed, as she cheerfully introduced herself to the server, their unfortunate table-mates, and the people at the table across the aisle.

 _How typically American,_ thought Sarah, well into her character.

The loud woman reached out to shake hands with one of the men across from her.

The man she was talking to put one hand into his coat, nodding his head and speaking to her in a thick accent of his own.

Sarah ignored the loud woman completely, her attention on the man, what little she could see of the man sitting across from him with his back to her, and the man next to him. He looked familiar, his eyes wary, his posture far from relaxed. He turned his head further to speak with his seatmate, and Sarah caught his full profile. Only the depth of her role enabled her to conceal her shock.

What was Juan Diego Arnaldo doing on this train?

* * *

 **A/N2** Sarah baby-stepping away from Agent Walker is a bot of a reference to the story Chuck vs Gravity, where she baby-steps toward honesty. Love that story.

I was stuck for a very long time on this chapter, trying to figure out what all these people were doing, and what elements from canon I could use to show them doing it. It never occurred to me to think of the Honeymooners episode until tonight.

Another reason I took so long to get this chapter done was because I was writing a fanfiction in the Avengers fandom, a little story called Irony, about Captain America and how he returned the Infinity gems. I don't know how many of you like those movies, but I hope some of you will give that story a try. I have a few stories in other fandoms, but not many.

Please leave a comment, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this thing. It helps the story talk to me if you do too.


	26. Chapter 26

**A/N** For the benefit of those who don't know, there's a Facebook group for Chuck Fanfiction, and we'd love to have some new members. I don't own Chuck. Every once in a while I remember to say it.

Let's catch up with Sarah for a while.

* * *

 _"_ _Go, team._ _"_

 _"_ _Bravo._ _"_

 _"_ _What matters is vision_ _._ _"_

 _"T_ _his is the first we've ever_ seen _this car."_

* * *

On the train, after dark...

Sarah moved down the hall of the sleeping car, silent, invisible. Compartment 47, the one used by Arnaldo and his goons, was just ahead. In a shocking lapse of operational security, they'd billed their meal to it, where any spy in the room could overhear them. As she came up to the door she accidentally tapped a glass bowl with ice cream melting in it with her foot, making the spoon rattle.

She froze, but only for a second, cursing the sloppy passengers and stewards making hash of her plans, but no one responded to the sound from within the compartment. She knew Arnaldo had been on the run for a while, so he must have all his men with him.

The door was unlocked, again pretty sloppy for terrorists, and Sarah wasted no time looking in desk drawers and bags for incriminating- _bingo!_ Right there next to a passport in his own damn name was a notebook, filled with cryptic writing and drawings, apparently in some kind of code. From outside the room she heard the sound of men talking as they approached the room. She put the book back and looked at the bathroom door, but realized she'd only be trapping herself. Instead she went for the window. She lowered the upper pane and climbed out, gripping a metal lip above her as she perched precariously on the top of the outer pane. She heard the sound of someone ratting a spoon in a glass bowl, and she froze again, moving the tips of her booted feet as far apart as the frame of the window would let her.

Some men came into the room, speaking in Spanish and not sounding happy as they did, but she couldn't hear it well enough to know what they were talking about. One of them came over to the window and closed it, cutting off their voices and leaving her stranded. Looking around, she noticed a light from a window a few compartments down that appeared to be open. Looking up, she secured a better handhold and pulled herself to the top of the car, walking down to the place where she remembered the open window being and dropping herself into the compartment.

A man walked out of the bathroom at the sound. "What the hell are y'all doin' in mah room?" he yelled, his accent as broad as the ditzy woman's from the dining car. Sarah really hadn't gotten a good look at him, thanks to the woman's antics, and Arnaldo.

She didn't get much of a look this time either-male, older, dark hair, poor taste in pajamas-before he threw himself back in the bathroom and locked the door. "I'm not going to hurt you," she said, making her generic-European accent almost as thick as his. She picked up his phone and glanced at it, just in case.

"Mah wife is gonna kick mah behind," he wailed.

"Don't worry, I'm going," said Sarah, putting the phone down. She left, closing the door behind her as she decided which way to go. She was on the wrong side of Arnaldo's compartment, so she had to walk past it to get to her own.

At a jog in the hall she encountered the ditzy woman going the other way, carrying a bowl of melted ice cream. "Pehr-dahn," the woman said as she squeezed by, in mangled and horribly-accented French.

Sarah looked after her as she walked away.

* * *

They were all back the next day. Sarah had gotten there early for the show.

Arnaldo and his goons sat in the same booth in the dining car, the goons having switched positions but Arnaldo always safe behind them. Mr. and Mrs. American came in with their same flair, and Mrs. American made a beeline for Arnaldo's table, chattering away as if they were the oldest of friends. This time she got around to introducing her husband, dressed in something more flattering than last night's PJs. Which didn't say much. Sarah caught the word 'honeymoon', but not whether it was their third, or fourth.

The woman went for her bag, making both of the bodyguards flinch, but she came out with a phone. She tried to hand it to someone at the table but somehow managed to knock all their bottles of water over. The husband loudly proclaimed his intention to get them new drinks and walked away, leaving his bride to chat up the three strange men.

Sarah waited until the new drinks had been delivered and the bride ransomed, then spirited all the way to the far end of the car, where they suddenly got very quiet. No one else seemed to notice, unless it was to breathe a sigh of relief.

Sarah got up and walked toward the door at the end of the car, right next to Mr. and Mrs. American. She pulled it open, but rather than step through she plopped herself down on the seat opposite the 'happy couple' and glared at them. "You two are idiots, you know that?" she said, her voice low. "And I don't mean this newlywed act."

"I don't believe we've had the pleasure," sputtered the man, in a pale imitation of his outrageous accent. He started to reach across the table. "Mah name is-"

"Be silent," said Sarah. "Do you realize that the guy you're trying to con is a terrorist?"

"We're not trying to con him, honey," said the man in a normal voice. "We're trying to arrest him."

"We're federal agents," said the woman. "Retired."

They picked up their glasses of water and toasted each other. "To not being spies."

Sarah put up a thumb, pointing over her shoulder. "And him?"

The man looked apologetic. "It's kind of hard to turn off."

The woman nodded. "We take out his guards, cuff him to a lamppost and call Interpol while we walk off into the sunset, day saved."

"That's the stupidest plan I've ever heard," said Sarah.

"When you're a spy you can give us a call," said the woman acerbically.

Something about that comment was familiar. Right. Carina. "Is the name Sofia Stepanova familiar to you?" From behind Sarah there came a sound of two heads falling down onto their breakfast dishes. It was distinctive.

Mr. American Spy nudged his wife, already in motion but not nearly fast enough. "'Scuse us, honey, gotta go."

Sarah turned, to see Arnaldo climbing out of his booth at pretty much the same speed, and all three of them ran off down the hall. She knew where they all had to be going and followed, her imperious manner and icy glare keeping the passengers who had been discommoded by the older trio from getting in her way too.

When she got to compartment 47 the door was shut, but it still wasn't locked. Sarah went in, to find the retired spy couple huffing and puffing by themselves. "He's pretty spry for an old guy," said the man.

"He got away?" asked Sarah.

Mr. American waved tiredly at the door in the corner. "Nah, he's in the bathroom."

Sarah opened the door and looked inside. Arnaldo was slumped against the wall, looking unconscious. She looked for tranq darts but didn't see any. "What did you hit him with?" she asked.

Mrs. American looked confused. "Nothing."

Arnaldo sprang up and rushed at Sarah, taking her by surprise as he pushed past her into the hall. Sarah gave chase, not knowing why but pretty sure she could come up with a good reason. A passenger with a backpack bigger than himself saw Arnaldo coming and flinched mightily. The backpack, taken by surprise, kept going. It would have dragged its owner completely around if it hadn't hit Arnaldo and knocked him to one side, where the stairs to the ground happened to be.

So yes, Arnaldo managed to escape the train.

Unfortunately Sarah was right behind him and she was still on her feet. "Up," she said harshly, grabbing him and shoving him ahead of her. "You've got agents coming after you. We need to get you to safety."

"What are you talking about?" he said breathlessly. "I _was_ safe, until they knocked out my Interpol protection team."

"Those were Interpol men?" asked Sarah. _Crap. Crapcrapcrap._ She pulled him to a stop once they were under cover. "You surrendered yourself?"

"I've been on the run for two years," said Arnaldo, panting. "Not like this, but still...Always looking over my shoulder. I couldn't take it anymore."

"Great, now we really need to get moving," said Sarah, urging him along at a fast walk. "With those Interpol agents out of the way, your own men are going to try to kill you."

"Who are you, and why do you care?" asked Arnaldo, not resisting, since he wasn't stupid. Just curious.

Sarah dropped her accent. "I care because I'm CIA, and I think those two idiots back there were CIA also."

"Is that all this is, professional pride?" Arnaldo sounded disappointed.

"No," said Sarah. "I care because I'm a human being." She met his gaze with her own, squarely. _I'm the landlord._ "My name is Rebecca Franco, Sr. Arnaldo, and as one human being to another, I'm hoping you'll do me a favor when I get you back to your Interpol handlers."

* * *

The two retired agents split up, looking for their quarry, both Arnaldo and the mysterious red-haired woman who seemed to be his ally, but neither of them were to be found anywhere. "Damn it," said the man.

"What do we do now?" asked the woman. "We can't just let a wanted terrorist roam loose."

"I don't know, hon," said the man. "This just isn't our sort of town. Whoever that woman was, I doubt she'll just hand him back over to us." As he finished speaking, his phone chimed with an incoming message. He looked at it, and found an image. "What the hell?"

The red-haired woman stood front and center, glowering at the screen, an odd-looking gun held up by her shoulder. Behind her other shoulder stood Arnaldo, looking terrified. The message said, "His fate is in my hands now. Pursue at your peril."

"I hate blowhards," said the woman, looking over his shoulder.

"I love idiots," said the man, smirking. "She's put part of the store name in the photo, and I can see at least one street sign. We just need to get a phone book."

"What you need is legal counsel," said a man behind them, as handcuffs were slapped on their wrists, joining the American couple together. Two men stepped in front of them, the same two they drugged earlier. "Interpol. You're under arrest."

"Interpol?" said the man. "Not ETA?"

"Try Witness Protection."

The two retired agents shared a look. "Oh."

One of the Interpol agents stepped forward and took the phone from the man's hand, and glanced at the picture. "I know where they are."

"What do we do with them?" asked his partner.

* * *

At a bakeshop not far away, as the crow flies...

"I must say I am almost envious of this young man who has captured your heart," said Arnaldo, taking a bite of his pastry with a sip of tea. "It is good to know what you want, and a blessing to know so young. One of my many mistakes."

"I would have made the same one," said Sarah. "I was prepared to run, to spend my days looking backward, but he was wiser than me."

"Wiser than both of us," said Arnaldo.

"Thanks to him we don't have to choose ourselves over our lives, our careers, our families. We can be together as soon as this mission is over. I expect when I get back his sister will have most of the planning already done."

Arnaldo smiled. "Be grateful for such-" He looked out the window, his voice dropping. "Talent."

"Sr. Arnaldo?"

"Those are my men, not Interpol agents."

Sarah stood, but the approaching men had done their job, holding her attention for a crucial second in a building with many doors.

* * *

Mr. and Mrs. American toodled up outside the bakeshop on a little scooter, their hands still linked together. Through the window they could see Arnaldo taking abuse, and his red-haired protector watching stoically, her hands behind her head. "It's up to us," he said.

She smiled. "Let's do this."

* * *

Sarah had noticed them on their scooter, so when she heard the revving engine she was almost prepared for it. She dropped, her hands dipping down into the back of her coat, because that's where Chuck would have told her to stash her holdout if she'd had a chance to ask him. It wouldn't have worked for a regular gun, which would have made a noticeable bulge under her coat, but for the weapon in question it worked nicely.

The scooter was a great distraction, but the American spies were too slow to take proper advantage of it. As they clambered over the broken window sill, the ETA terrorists all took up proper firing stances, just waiting for their targets to stand up.

Sarah fired her paralyzer as fast as she could aim.

The Americans attacked, plowing through their opposition as if it was standing still, which it was. Thugs in the back pushed forward, but by then the Americans were in motion and doing pretty well for themselves. One terrorist stood up behind them, but Sarah shot him seconds before the American woman kicked him into a display case.

Soon only the leader was left, her gun steady. "I gave you your lives."

"You killed those Interpol agents in front of us and told us to scurry away," shouted the man. "But let me tell you something, honey, we're CIA-"

"Ex-CIA," said the woman.

"And we don't scurry. We testify."

"You die." The girl took aim.

A heavy plate sailed across the floor and smacked the girl in the head, dropping her like a rock.

The American man looked to the source, which must have been Juan Diego Arnaldo on the floor by a spilled bus tray. "Nice toss, Mr. Arnaldo." He looked around. "Where's your friend?"

"That woman was no friend of mine," said Arnaldo. "Her name is Rebecca Franco. You may have blown my cover with ETA, but she would have cut through all of us like butter. A thrown plate is barely enough thanks. I drove her from the movement for her extreme methods and mercenary attitude. I won't be truly safe until she is caught."

"We'll get the word out," promised the man. "We can't go after her ourselves, we have to protect you until new Interpol guys get here."

Arnaldo bowed. "You have my gratitude. May I have your names?"

"I'm Craig."

"I'm Laura."

Craig put an arm around Laura's shoulders. "We're the Turners."

* * *

 **A/N2** Which probably wasn't a surprise to anyone. As a comic pair of spies they were excellent, much more suitable for this role than our heroes. In an earlier episode I diverted them from chasing Otto von Vogel and his tiger, to Milan and Fashion Week.


	27. Unmoving

**A/N** For the benefit of those who don't know, there's a Facebook group for Chuck Fanfiction, and we'd love to have some new members.

I don't know about you, but I never liked Sarah Walker with black hair. Her voice was too light, her eyes too blue. So I made her transformation into Rebecca Franco a little more extreme.

* * *

 _"_ _I'm not going to hurt you._ _"_

 _"_ _It's kind of hard to turn off._ _"_

 _"_ _I care because I'm a human being._ _"_

 _"_ _Her name is Rebecca Franco."_

* * *

The leather-clad brunette–Zondra to her friends and "You!" to her enemies–staggered back, trying to stay away from the painting equipment stacked in the center of the room, limiting her options. She knew that stuff was there somewhere, but she was having a bit of trouble seeing right now, and her attacker wasn't giving her any chance to put up much of a fight. Punches and kicks, mostly kicks, came in quick succession, and blocking those kicks had always been a weakness of hers. She'd always meant to fix that, but then circumstances had put them on opposite sides.

She punched her opponent in the face, sending her glasses flying, and got a hard-shove in return. She fetched up against a window, a wall of them the only thing between her and an eighty-foot drop to the ground below. Miraculously the flurry of kicks stopped, just when one more would have done the job, and she cleared her head and her eyes, staring at her attacker with undisguised loathing. "Is that all you got?"

Her enemy looked her in the face, and Zondra couldn't help it, she gasped, flinching. The black-haired attacker took advantage of that momentary paralysis, reached forward and grabbed her jacket, her shirt, and pulled her forward into a solid right cross that sent her reeling against the glass. She heard it break as she fell into the dark...

* * *

Castle, two days before...

 _"What have you got for me, son?"_ asked Orion.

"We have a report of Volkoff and Frost in Istanbul," said Chuck, doubtfully. He had the file all set up to send. It felt funny calling his mother Frost, she hadn't seemed a bit frosty that night in the park. Still, it was probably best to think of her that way, as long as she was with Volkoff.

 _"That's a phony."_ Well, if anyone knew where Frost was at all times, it would be Orion.

Chuck sent the file into another folder entirely. Body doubles, innocent bystanders, who cared? Well, he knew one person who'd had his hopes up. "Too bad, Casey was hoping for a little action. Did you know his trigger finger really gets itchy if he doesn't shoot anything for a while? I always thought that was just a metaphor."

 _"Focus, Chuck, your fiancee needs you."_

"Right." His fiancee. Just like his father's wife needed his father. And they all needed him. 'Focus' wasn't quite the word he would have used. Chuck pulled up the next item on his list. "How about Aldebert de Smet, a/k/a, The Belgian, currently in his cleverly-named villain's lair in in Gstaad, Switzerland, planning to auction off a diamond of great value to the CIA?"

 _"Possible, but I'd like to keep her moving forward."_ Unless a step backward in space could be a step forward in some other mission-related sense. _"Is this diamond of any interest to Volkoff?"_

"It's been used as collateral in a number of shady deals, some of them weapons related." Chuck could feel a 'no' hovering, but he was willing to let his father make that call.

 _"Not good enough,"_ said Orion. _"Send it in and let the CIA send someone else to handle it."_

"Okay, Dad." Chuck sent it in so the CIA could send someone else to handle it. "Last but not least, we have a former Soviet naval base in Estonia, playing host to a diesel sub currently for sale from your favorite arms dealer and mine."

"Yes, your mother told me about that," said Orion dismissively. "Some world war two-era hunk of junk."

Chuck reminded himself that his father was a computer engineer, not a spy, however much he may have picked up on the job. "A Balao-class hunk of junk, Dad, decent rated dive depth but capable of more. A very capable and dangerous vessel, recently retrofitted with modern electric motors, giving it a considerably extended range."

 _"How extended?"_

"American East Coast extended. We'll let our guys know about the possibility, while you move Sarah into position." He started considering possible origin stories for whatever monster Sarah might have to pretend to be. He preferred superheroes, but any, _heh_ , port in a storm.

* * *

The woman becoming known to the security forces of Europe as Rebecca Franco stepped into her cheap rental flat as if it was an enemy war zone, because it might have been. Those two idiot ex-spies had turned out to be good at something, which was causing trouble for her. They even had a face to go with the name.

Perfect.

Fortunately the red hair was easily changed to something not red, the rest of her appearance equally easy to alter. That was why she'd made it look like that in the first place. Not that she'd planned this particular avenue of approach, but a good spy learns to be ready to exploit any opportunities they may trip across. She still had Vivian's locket, as well, but that was something she could pull out at any time.

Sarah Walker looked up from the blackness swirling down the drain, the stray bits of hair, and stared at herself in the mirror. Her eyes. She tried to make them hard, cold, chips of blue ice, and she did it. She was glad to know she could do it. She hated that she could do it.

It wasn't the right look for Rebecca Franco, though. Too hard to maintain, and they didn't match the hair. Instead she went with a simple prosthetic, contact lenses that made her irises so dark no one would be able to see her pupils change. Her eyes were like little black holes, unchanging. Creepy.

The sort of thing Rebecca Franco would like, and she liked it. Her whole life flashed before those eyes, and it wasn't a pleasant one. _Because they were creepy no one ever saw the rest of her face. She creeped everyone out, including herself. No one noticed anything but those eyes._

Sarah grimaced. It was kind of bare bones as origin stories went. She was sure Chuck could come up with something much better than that.

She looked down, cleaning up the sink, like she was cleaning up a...a crime scene, removing all traces of her presence. No evidence, nothing to link this place to...the Black Widow?

No. Too comic book. She was and always would be the real deal. She was Rebecca Franco. She looked up, saw herself in the mirror, and shuddered at the sight of her own eyes.

Perfect. She reached for her phone.

* * *

In Castle...

The monitor chimed, an incoming communication from the General, and Casey ran over to take his usual place as the screen lit. "Colonel Casey."

"Ma'am," he said, formally, but then the dam broke. "You have a mission for us?"

"No, Colonel, I need you alive." It wouldn't matter if he survived any hypothetical mission or not. Once Sarah heard he'd left Chuck on his own she'd kill him herself. "We just received a communique from our allies in Europe, alerting us to the activities of a terrorist and mercenary, at one time a member of ETA but since then disavowed."

" _ETA_ didn't want him?"

"Her," asked the General mildly. "Boggles the mind, doesn't it? They sent us a picture of the woman in question, only known alias is Rebecca Franco, and asked if we had any intel to share." She posted the picture in question, background images and people carefully erased.

Casey studied the image for a moment. "Nope, don't know her." Not that he would or should, since he didn't operate in Europe. "I'll pass this on to Agent Carmichael and see if the Intersect has anything."

"You do that," said Beckman. "Keep me apprised." The screen went dark.

* * *

That night, at the casa de Woodcombe...

"Chuckster," said Devon, as he opened the door.

"Hi, Awesome," said Chuck. He sniffed the air. "Is that Chicken Tarragon?"

"What can I say, it's Hell," said Devon with a smile.

"Hey Chuck," said Ellie, as her husband let her brother into the apartment, "Any news about Sarah?" He'd been coming over for dinner frequently, but tonight he seemed happier. She wiped her hands on a towel and came out of the kitchen for a hug.

"Not really," said Chuck in a cheerful voice. "But we did get a request from Interpol concerning a terrorist at large, one Rebecca Franco." He handed Ellie his tablet with her picture on it.

"Isn't that one of the names Sarah used to use...?" said Ellie as she looked at the image.

Chuck grinned. "Amazing coincidence, isn't it? Fortunately for them, Interpol I mean, we had a shot of her real appearance in our files." He stroked the screen in Ellie's hands.

"Ah!" she shrieked, almost dropping it. "What the hell did Sarah do to herself?"

"Not much," said Chuck calmly, as Devon came over to take a look. "It's the eyes that sell it, 'like a doll's eyes'."

"Whoa," said Devon, "Awesome, but in a totally 'not awesome' kind of way."

"Poor Rebecca was born with black irises. Totally messed up her life, yadda yadda. Got a whole backstory for her, if you're interested, with a quickie psych profile from Dreyfus, outlining her hunger for parental affection. Anyway, somehow the CIA discovered a submarine that Volkoff was trying to sell and sent an agent, one Kate O'Connell by name, to prevent the sale. Which she did, scuttling the ship, but unfortunately–" he stroked the tablet once more "–that vicious terrorist killed her in the process. Sent us this picture on the agent's phone, right before we lost the signal. Talk about chutzpah."

"Isn't Katie O'Connell another one of the names Sarah used to use?" said Ellie, letting Devon hold the tablet as she went back to her kitchen business.

Chuck grinned. "Amazing coincidence, isn't it?"

"I hope that's not real blood on that knife," said Devon. It was all a sham, it had to be, like a movie. A very realistic movie. He stopped looking, letting the whole gestalt concept of Chicken Tarragon fill his mind and his soul. Blood would never bother a surgeon, but he knew it bothered Sarah, and he felt bad for her. He was inhaling that aroma on her behalf, yes he was.

"Don't worry, Devon, if it is then it's her own." Chuck took the tablet back. "Sarah's out of the assassination game. She's, I mean, _Rebecca's_ on her way to Volkoff now."

* * *

On a secure conference call...

"Do we have any idea where Agent Walker is now?" asked A. So far only B's report had been optimistic, even though B refused to give in to optimism. Unprofessional, and all that.

"Possibly Europe," said C. "We have some partial matches in a commercial flight from a few days ago. They've been pushing for economy measures here, lately, thanks to some temporary budgeting snafu."

"Amateurs," sneered E.

C would have rolled his eyes, but they wouldn't hear that over the phone. "Yeah, whatever. If it was her, the trail goes to England and stops there."

"Why England?"

"Unknown. No one there that particularly needs to be dead right now, beyond the usual. We're looking for any events she may have participated in, but nothing's come up so far."

"Spread your net wider," said A, who was getting quite tired of 'I don't know' as an answer. "They didn't send the Ice Queen to England, unannounced, for no reason."

Clyde Decker rolled his eyes. "Will do."

* * *

The ride was long, and slow, but not too slow, meant to impress, but it failed in that intention. Rebecca Franco rode in the elevator with three unsmiling goons, possibly a sign of respect, more likely not, but in that they also failed. Three of them, all larger than her and armed, and they were terrified.

She hadn't even taken her glasses off yet. Maybe they'd heard some of those rumors circulating. Honestly, she just had no idea where some of those wild stories came from.

The elevator whined to a stop, and the doors opened on nothing. An empty hall, and the open double-doors of a large office. Clearly designed to put her in her place, since she could see compressed areas in the carpeting where guards would normally stand, but not now, not for her. She wasn't considered a threat. Or rather, she shouldn't think of herself as a threat.

Which meant she was one. Or Volkoff had balls of steel, not that the two were incompatible.

Visible from the elevator was an older woman, not Volkoff himself, but she wasn't obviously tracking their guest as she moved out of the elevator. Her attention was directed at the other side of the room, where Rebecca eventually saw a man standing by an easel, painting with fierce concentration. He was tall, his hair short, and he clothed himself in shades of grey.

The older woman made a soft sound in her throat, and the man stopped, his hands holding in place as he directed his attention elsewhere. He seemed either pleased or amused to see her. "Miss Franco," he said, his accent strongly English. He put down his equipment and picked up a towel.

"Only to those who wish to die soon," said Rebecca in Russian. Her voice was as dark as her hair. "Here we are all friends, yes?"

Volkoff smiled. "I would hope so." He came around to the front of his desk. "Please, sit."

Rebecca eyed the chairs. "When you do."

Volkoff remained standing. "As you wish." He settled back comfortably against his desk. "I believe I owe you a small debt of gratitude."

Rebecca shook her head. "It is customary to bring a small gift, especially as I had not yet been invited."

"I do so like a woman with manners." He affected a sorrowful expression. "And speaking of manners, where are mine?" He gestured toward the older woman, standing far enough away that one gun could not take them both. "Allow me to introduce the power in front of my throne. You may call her Frost."

The two women calmly assessed each other. "Why do you think Alexei should have invited you?" asked Frost.

"I have skills–"

"Which your friends in the ETA threw you out for."

Rebecca's hands came up, claws out. _"Those fools!"_

The three guards drew as one.

Rebecca attacked them as one, left them on the floor as one.

"Put them down," said Frost calmly. Her gun was aimed right at the center of the black-haired woman's torso.

Rebecca completed her turn, the guns she'd taken from the guards dangling from her fingers. Somehow her glasses had come off, and she aimed her dead stare first at Frost, then her host. Neither of them reacted, and she smiled. "Certainly." She lowered one gun each into Volkoff's guest chairs. "Please, sit."

"Well," said Alexei contemplatively, "It seems we've had a few positions open up on staff, doesn't it, Frost?"

"Yes, Alexei."

Volkoff gestured at his fallen guards. "As for you, Rebecca, your resume is most impressive, and you've certainly presented yourself in a very positive light. You have only one question to answer to complete your application, which is, why would I ever trust you?"

Rebecca nodded. "A fair question." Frost raised her gun as she reached up slowly under her hair, but she was merely unclasping a chair around her neck. She pulled it out from under her jacket, with a small locket hanging. "You're going to trust me because she did."

Alexei Volkoff stood up, straight, tall, and held out a hand. Rebecca held the locket over his hand and lowered the chain into it. "You did say," he said to Frost, "That she'd be back, whoever she was."

Frost put her gun away at last. "I did, Alexei."

Volkoff walked over to his easel, his body preventing Rebecca from seeing the painting on it until he turned the stand around. It was a painting of a young woman on horseback, at her throat was the locket. He draped the chain over the top of the frame, the locket resting near her head. "Miss Franco," said Alexei Volkoff, "Welcome to Volkoff Industries."

* * *

 **A/N2** I almost did research on the Balao-class submarine, but most of the details weren't there, so I hand-waved around it. Whew. Close call. The idea for the sub plot was taken from a movie, but I'm not telling you which one.


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N** For the benefit of those who don't know, there's a Facebook group for Chuck Fanfiction, and we'd love to have some new members.

* * *

 _"_ _Is that all you got?_ _"_

 _"_ _Amazing coincidence, isn't it?_ _"_

 _"_ _I do so like a woman with manners._ _"_

 _"_ _Welcome to Volkoff Industries."_

* * *

Volkoff HQ, Moscow...

Alexei turned to his right-hand woman. "Some cognac, please, Frost," he said, not quite an order. "We need to determine how best to utilize our new employee's particular skills."

Frost collected the fallen guards' guns, but didn't move toward the sideboard. "May I have a word with you, Alexei?" she asked. "In private."

Volkoff looked a bit sulky, to Sarah's amazement, but he complied with his aide's polite...request, as she sat to wait. The two of them went to an alcove, not far away, but it must have been designed to warp sound somehow, because Sarah could hear their voices but couldn't make out anything they said.

* * *

Frost kept her face turned away after securing the guns in a drawer, the tone of her voice calm. "Alexei, are you out of your mind? She's a psychopath!"

He kept the same tone. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

Frost tried again. "She's going to betray you."

"Well, probably, that does seem to be her history," said Alexei. "But it all depends on how she defines betrayal. And whose purposes that betrayal serves. You read that psychologist's report."

Alexei had forwarded the file on Rebecca Franco to her as soon as his people inside Interpol sent him a copy. "Seemed like a lot of New Age gobbledy-gook."

"Not her report, dear, yours. They predicted you were going to betray me too, and look at you now. You're my strong right hand."

Frost shrugged. Her supposed report had been crafted to make a betrayal seem inevitable, and it had worked beautifully. She recognized the style in Sarah's file, hopefully the author hadn't lost his touch. "Well, I betrayed _some_ body..."

"Exactly," said Volkoff happily. "I just had to take that impulse and aim it elsewhere, a most enjoyable task. You know I take great pleasure from bending people to my will."

She knew. Unlike him she took no pleasure in it. "I do."

"Have dinner with me."

"No." Frost looked back at Rebecca, looking at them. "I'm trying to think of how your pet lunatic could be useful."

Alexei looked mildly insulted. "That's harsh."

"You're calling _that_ harsh?" Frost said, glad she no longer had to keep her voice down. "Aren't you the one who had your own bodyguard..." She paused.

"Yuri," said Alexei right on cue, drawing out ever syllable. "Yuri the Gobbler."

"Yes, him," said Frost, rolling her eyes. Alexei loved that name. "You had him broken out of an American supermax prison, and you didn't even ask how he ended up in an American prison. You just had him brought back here into this office, and why? So you could shoot him. In the head. Yourself."

"Not just in the head," growled Volkoff, remembering the scene. He'd embraced Yuri, and Yuri's regret and apologies had been most sincere. It almost made him sad. "In the eye."

"His _glass_ eye," added Frost. "There are fragments still stuck in the wall."

"And the ceiling," said Volkoff with a grin. Frost gave him a sharp look, and he huffed, "It's not my fault the housekeeping staff are all so short."

"Buy a ladder."

"I'm testing their resourcefulness," said Alexei. "And on that note, what do you suggest we do with my pet lunatic, as you so charmingly describe her?"

Frost blew out a sigh. "Well, having her free Yuri is out, so the next best thing I can think of is to test her with gusto."

"That's what I'm trying to do," said Volkoff, "But you keep, what do you Americans call it, 'raining on my parade'."

Frost closed her eyes, gathered her strength, and drew upon her enormous reserve of patience. "No, Alexei, not with gusto, with _gusto._ "

For a second Volkoff looked blank, but that second only lasted a second. Then he grinned. "Oh, now that is a wicked idea."

Frost tried to look pleased. "Thank you."

"Poor Gusto," sighed Volkoff. "I shall miss him."

* * *

Rebecca looked up and stood as her new employers came out of the alcove, all smiles. "Rebecca, dear," said Volkoff, as Frost went to the sideboard to pour the cognac. "We've come to a decision about how best to make use of your talents." He didn't go on to say what they'd decided, though.

Frost came up to them with a tray holding two filled glasses. "We're going to send you to meet with Augusto Gaez, leader of the Gentle Hand, to express Alexei's unhappiness at their recent...falling out."

Rebecca took one of the glasses. She hadn't been able to understand the words but she'd heard the yelling and seen Volkoff's 'unhappiness' from across the room. "So it is a suicide mission." She didn't seem displeased.

Volkoff took the other, since Frost didn't drink. "I wouldn't say that." There was definitely a very slim chance that she might survive.

Rebecca snorted her amusement. "Any man who has a falling out with you is committing suicide," she said. "I am just the bullet."

Ah. A woman of wit as well as manners. "You're an extraordinary bullet, my dear," said Volkoff, touching his glass to hers. "Nothing 'just' about you."

"You're sweet," said Rebecca in her dark, flat voice. She put her glasses on. "Tell me more."

* * *

Echo Park, after dinner, but not long after...

Ellie sipped her water, wishing it was wine but that was out for the duration. "So, Chuck, how are the wedding plans going?"

The question shouldn't have caught him off guard like that. It was Ellie, after all. "Uh..." How _were_ the wedding plans going? He started to check his pockets. Wedding plans, wedding plans... wedding planners. Oh. Right. "Wedding planner. I said I would get one, but she said that field was full of con artists and she would do it herself."

Ellie looked impressed, and doubtful. "She's going to plan her wedding?"

"No, she would find an honest wedding planner."

"Have you considered eloping?" asked Devon, remembering his own big day, both the morning and the afternoon. Wedding planners and the CIA don't mix.

"Honey," said Ellie in a voice dripping with poisoned, um, honey, "Have you considered sleeping on the couch for the rest of the week?"

Devon blanched, which, considering his fair coloring, was quite an achievement. "Sorry, dude, you're on your own." He took his plate into the kitchen and never came back out.

"Now that _that's_ out of the way," said Ellie, folding her hands on the table and fixing her steeliest gaze on her brother, "What are you planning for the engagement party?"

"Um..."

"Chuck!" snapped Ellie, remembering what Sarah had said long ago. Of that half a pew _not_ telling her she was making a mistake, how many were female? "However Sarah wants to get married is her business, but I do not want to be her matron of honor by default."

Assuming Sarah even wanted one, which apparently his sister was. "Um..."

Ellie made it simple for him. "Gather her friends. Find them, gather them, have a whole great party, and _then_ let her pick me. Got it?"

* * *

Rebecca Franco stalked the compound, her eyes no longer covered by the dark glasses. The guards knew of her, though, and stayed out of her way. Sound and shadow combined to warn her of one who was approaching quickly.

"Rebecca, stop exactly where you are," said Frost in English.

The black-haired woman stopped, automatically scanning the spot she stood on for some special quality but seeing nothing.

Frost came closer. "There is one square meter in this whole compound that is never under surveillance, and we're standing on it."

Sarah nodded. "Okay."

"Who is Sam?"

Sarah expected the code phrase, it was her idea. With one hand she gripped the sleeve of her coat, and held out her wrist. Frost ran her fingers over the charms on the bracelet, stopping at the two hearts. "These are new. Who _is_ Sam?"

"I am," said Sarah, pulling the bracelet back under cover. "I was. She might be me someday, I hope so."

Frost nodded slowly. "Your mission has two parts," she said. "First, you will have more freedom of movement than I do, so you will be my point of contact with Orion."

"Understood."

"Second, no matter what you may think your orders are, you must under no circumstances kill Augusto Gaez."

"Thank God," said Sarah. It was like the universe had been conspiring against her lately. "Why not?"

"Alexei believes Gaez is double-crossing him, and wants him killed with no links to himself. He can't let his other customers know he had anything to do with it. The second you kill him, you'll be killed yourself."

She was a cutout; Volkoff would cut her out himself unless someone else got to her first. "That's a good reason. But?" asked Sarah, who knew that nothing was ever that simple.

"But I believe that Gaez is being manipulated to lure Alexei into a trap. What do you know about my mission here?"

"Uh, contact killed, mission files lost," said Sarah.

"Try erased," said Frost. "I should be dead, but Alexei believed the psychologist's report about me and thought I'd turned." She scanned the surroundings. "So here I am. Orion believes the people who burned my mission want Alexei, but he won't work with them."

"Who are 'they'?"

"We don't know," said Frost. "Hypothetically, if they exist, they're someone in the Intelligence Community, with resources and great patience, but they're running out of time, or think they are. They're tricking Gaez into making this move, so that Alexei will kill him and alienate his allies. This will leave him with no place to go but them."

"And they do what, kill him themselves?" asked Sarah. She doubted that. This plan seemed too convoluted for such a simple goal.

"No. Alexei's empire is virtual, a computer database called Hydra," said Frost, looking around. The mere fact that she kept this spot off of any scans didn't mean that someone might come by who needed to pee. "These Black Hats want what we want, and the second either of us finds it Alexei is a dead man. Why do you think he's so secretive about his technology?"

"You've worked with and for him for twenty years," said Sarah. "Can you simply turn on him like that?"

Frost hesitated. "Is it a good or a bad thing that I have to guess?" she asked, and sighed. "Good, I guess. This duty requires us to make hard choices, the kind we don't recognize ourselves on the other side of. Watch out for those."

Sarah lifted her hand, and its hidden heart bracelet. "Got that covered."

* * *

At the case de Grimes...

Alex lay in the bed, wearing Morgan's never-before-worn, limited-edition Zemeckis-authenticated Back to the Future T-shirt. He was in the kitchen, getting them some leftovers for brunch, when his phone chimed and the screen lit. She turned it to get a look. _Morgan, do you have Carina_ _'_ _s contact info? Kind'a needing it right now. Chuck_ _._

Wow, thought Alex, Who texts with punctuation?

Then Morgan was there, with trays and food on plates and the implied resumption of snuggle-time.

She held out his phone to him, so he could see that he had a text, if not the actual words. "Who's Carina?"

* * *

Somewhere, after Morgan had passed along the requested information...

"No, Chuck, that really wouldn't be a good idea," said Carina, who recognized bad ideas when she heard them. "Sure, there were a few of us, some perv in DC put us together and stuck us in leather outfits with a silly name...No, not the outfits, we had the silly name...what do you mean, 'even me'? I can tell with something is silly. Won't stop me from doing it, of course...Promise you won't laugh?...Okay, it was called the Clandestine Attack Team. CATS for short...You promised!... Squad...No, I know it makes no sense, that's why I said it was silly. I liked the outfits, though...It didn't end well, hard to be friends when you think they sold you out to the enemy. I guess I can reach out to Amy. She can smell a party a mile away, so you'll probably find her in there whether you invite her or not...Oh, I know how you can thank me, Chuckles...Right, engagement party. You remember _my_ engagement party?...we'll see. Toodles."

* * *

Rio de Janeiro...

Amy's phone chimed with an incoming message, and she checked the screen.

"You are a popular lady today," said her lover, in his deeply-accented voice. "And not just with me."

"Just some friends from my CAT Squad days," said Amy, with a smile. "One of them is getting married, and another called to tell me."

"That explains the squealing. Yet they continue to call?"

The smile faded. "They're trying to set up an engagement party, all of us CATs."

"Hm, could they be trying to get your band back together?"

"I wouldn't have thought so, Gusto, baby, feelings were pretty hard when we split up, but-" Amy shrugged "-stranger things have happened."

Augusto Gaez smirked. "You must bring your friend a gift."

"What kind of gift do I bring to an engagement party?" Amy had never been to one before.

Gaez tossed her a detonator. "A new car."

* * *

 **A/N2** In my imagination of what they did when breaking up the Rough Draft to become the back 6, S4, and S5, they took the good parts and mixed them with lots of treacle, marshmallow fluff, and a hefty sprinkle of McGuffins to bulk it up. Yuri (and Hydra) are McGuffins in the Gobbler episode, just as Carina was a McGuffin in the CAT Squad episode, so in this revision they go.

This is, BTW, the exact middle of the story, 6.5 out of 13 episodes.

I hope you'll take the time to leave a comment below. It makes the writing process easier. Thanks.


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N** For the benefit of those who don't know, there's a Facebook group for Chuck Fanfiction, and we'd love to have some new members.

We'll get back to the Gobbler soon, but first we're taking a detour into CAT Squad territory.

* * *

 _"_ _She's a psychopath!_ _"_

 _"_ _Have you considered eloping?_ _"_

 _"_ _Got that covered._ _"_

 _"_ _A new car_ _."_

* * *

Verbanski Corp. tower, last week...

Morgan Grimes was bored. Even as a C&C specialist he was still the junior guy, and he got the crap jobs, like monitor duty at headquarters. All weekend. Even the guys walking the floor had more fun.

He pulled out his phone and sent a message. _This sucks._

A few minutes later his phone chimed, and he checked the screen. _Yes it does. That's the job._

He waited until Four entered the stairwell before tapping out a quick _Does it have to?_

It was a while before an answer came back. _What do you have in mind?_

* * *

Somewhere in the world, this week...

It would have been simplest, fastest, and a dead giveaway, for Rebecca Franco to have made her way to Brazil on a Volkoff Industries private jet. The fastest commercial flights would have taken the wanted terrorist through a few different European airports. The flights that avoided those airports took days, with multiple stopovers for fueling, changes to other planes, and lots of other annoying delays. She wasn't known for handling annoyances very well.

The woman sitting in the chair in the crowded waiting room discovered that, when Rebecca stopped in front of her chair – black hair, black glasses, black clothes – and stared at her. She tried to pretend like she was reading her trashy romance novel, but the pages quivered. She slapped the book down, grabbed her bags from the chair next to her, and put them on a floor, waving Rebecca to the seat next to her with an angry gesture.

Rebecca tilted her head down slightly, allowing the woman to...see her point of view. Both of them. The woman paled, grabbed her bags, and fled.

Rebecca took her place, slipping the small flat case from under the arm of the chair where the other agent had hidden it. She folded her hands demurely in front of her, slipping the case inside one of her black leather gloves, and radiated an aura of menace so strong no one tried to sit in the one empty seat in the room.

* * *

Far away, in another quarter of the world, another woman was engaged in a mission of her own. It had taken days to plan, but she had days, long empty days. Full of vengeance, but vengeance is a very empty thing, like a bucket full of holes.

The office was empty on the weekends, mostly. There were guards, of course, there were always guards. Her objective guarded others, it would surely guard itself. The teams that got that duty were usually a mix of7 more experienced personnel with some trainees, learning the ropes the boring way.

Bored guards are useful guards. She thought about warning her boss, back in the day, but even then she'd been aware that players in this game switched sides, and stupid details like that could come in handy.

* * *

Verbanski tower, this week...

"Okay, Four, turn around."

On his screen Bravo Four took his hand off the handle to the stairway door, turned and faced the camera in the ceiling. _"I just did this floor!"_

Morgan checked the list. "And you're gonna do it again, in reverse this time. Six will leapfrog you, and Three will leapfrog him."

Four started walking. _"Who came up with this plan?"_

"Nobody did, Four, that's the beauty of it. It's a program that uses the building plan to create mostly random patterns. We've been testing it out just floor to floor, but the 2.0 is almost ready. If it works like I think it will, we'll GPS you through every floor, every night."

 _"Sounds like a lot of work for nothing, dude."_

"Not nothing, Four," said Morgan. "It's keeping me from falling asleep in my chair as my eyes glaze over."

 _"What are you even listening to him for, Grimes?"_ said One, who'd been monitoring Morgan's channel. _"You know he just likes to complain."_

"I do, Chief," said Morgan, "And you know what I haven't been hearing? Four complaining." Four had mastered the art of the sub-vocalized mutter. "I want to hear him complain, it means he's paying attention." So he can have things to complain about.

 _"It's your ears."_

Morgan laughed. "Not really, One," he said. "I put an alert on Four's microphone. If it's working and he stops muttering for more than ten seconds it pings me."

 _"God-_ damn _, Grimes,"_ said Four. _"Now you're making me feel all self-conscious."_

"Take a left there, you'll get over it. Those offices all interconnect."

On the screen Four turned left, and walked through a doorway. _"Great, now I gotta see what a bunch of slobs these guys are..."_

One's sound meter spiked as he laughed. _"Good call, Grimes."_

"All part of the service."

 _"Where do you want me to go next?"_

* * *

In Brazil...

Rebecca Franco stared up at the marquee for the Soco Na Garganta nightclub, bright and flashy like the club itself. She'd stick out out like a sore thumb in there.

She went around the back, so she could get to the roof. Nightclubs had to have air conditioning, and that meant vents.

* * *

The woman in black crawled through the ductwork of the building, well aware that every access point was monitored even if the more active scans were shut down, and determined to spend no more time in it than she had to. They didn't even use these vents, not for heating. Verbanski just kept it around for recruits to train in, having made sure all the important offices were on other floors.

Of course, some people have different definitions of 'important' than others.

After disabling the alarm, she poked a dental mirror through the vents and checked for guard patrols, not expecting to see any. She saw nothing, and smirked, behind her mask.

Satisfied that the coast was clear, she opened the vent and exited to the corridor, closing it behind her. The offices were all open so wandering guards could flash a light as they passed, and this made it easy for her to flash a light until she found the desk she was looking for.

She reached into her bag and pulled out her poisoned bait, then slipped into the office, left it in position, and slipped out again. Objective One was accomplished.

She headed for the stairs.

* * *

Chuck set his bowl of cereal down on the kitchen table. It was kind of late for cereal, but his schedule was all upside-down with Sarah so far away, so he was having breakfast after dark. He was still there with his food, listening to the latest communications, when Orion called. _"Sarah contacted you?"_

"Of course not," said Chuck. That wasn't his role in all of this. "This is Carina, reporting the successful handoff of our little package." The laptop squealed. "Okay that was her saying 'what the hell has Sarah done to herself?' Or she's buying a new car. It's a tricky language, the first made more sense in the context."

 _"Why use this protocol?"_ asked Orion. Carina could have called from a pay phone if she'd wanted. If there had been any pay phones where she was.

Chuck took a second to think about it, crunching on his marshmallow bits thoughtfully. "One of the first things she ever said to me was how she liked to take whatever Sarah wanted," he said. "I'm guessing this is just another example of that same competitive spirit." Taking contact with him, rather than him.

 _"You know Sarah would kill to be able to talk to you directly."_

Just like Mom. And he would...well, maybe not _kill_ , to hear it. "That too." Probably be best not to mention it to Sarah, when the time came.

 _"Maybe you should have used somebody else as a courier..."_

Not after she heard about the engagement. "We needed someone Sarah could recognize without signals. Not to mention Carina would have killed – Okay, she wouldn't have killed _me_ , but I didn't want to put some other poor agent at risk."

 _"She's in favor?"_

Actually, well, hmm. She hadn't really said anything either way, had she? "Hard to tell. She said she'd tell Amy, and that was all I heard. She didn't mention anyone else."

 _"You have a last name on this 'Amy'?"_

"No." His father – _Orion_ sounded curious. That could be bad. "Dad, what are you going to do?"

 _"You told me the CATs ended badly,"_ said Orion. _"I'm not about to let Carina or anyone else bring that unhappy ending into your new beginning."_

* * *

The woman in black grabbed the handle of the door to stairwell 2 and pulled. The door stuck, taking her only a little by surprise, and she immediately pulled harder. On the other side was a young man, flashlight in hand and anything but a bored expression on his face. "In–!"

She grabbed him before he could get another syllable out and pulled, helped by his lack of balance as he was practically falling into the room already. She threw him against the far wall and kicked him in the head.

He slumped, maybe dead, maybe not, but she had no time to check.

* * *

A person standing in the alley would have heard a lot of gunfire. They would have seen Rebecca Franco burst out the back door of the nightclub even as a herd of terrified patrons flooded out the front. Augusto Gaez' back took the brunt of the impact, his unconscious form slung over her shoulder. She staggered toward the mouth of the alley, desperate to find a place to stash him until she could figure out what to do with him.

Someone stepped out of the shadows. "Sunglasses at night, really?" said Amy.

* * *

Echo Park...

"Who the hell is that?" said Chuck, watching the image he was getting from his father's system.

 _"Working on it,"_ said Orion.

Chuck's phone started to warble.

* * *

Rebecca stopped. "You are American? CIA? DEA?"

Amy held up her weapon, all the ID she needed, there and then. "I work for a lot of people."

Sarah took off her glasses. Her eyes glowed, bright yellow irises with little red skulls. Chuck had thought a whack job like Rebecca Franco deserved some kind of whack job fetish, like all the good villains. For Rebecca it was contact lenses. As a plus, the little cameras inside the skulls transmitted everything she saw.

Amy must not have read the file. She gasped. "What kind of sick bitch are you?"

"At least I am not a traitor."

Amy smirked. "Better to be the betrayer than the betrayed." She raised her gun, taking aim. "Too bad he's out, now I'll never have a chance to say gnnh."

Amy fell down, a large wine bottle falling to the ground next to her. A woman stood behind her, a phone in her hand instead of a trashy romance novel. "Stop," she said, calmly, and in Portuguese. "Police."

Rebecca dumped the body of Augusto, his head hitting the fallen bottle and sending it rolling as she turned and ran. Behind her, Carina walked up to her unconscious prisoners. "Damn," she said mildly, in English. "She got away."

She pulled a couple of pairs of handcuffs out of her pockets, knowing that Chuck would be sending backup, and put them to use. She put Amy's gun in her pocket, and dragged her prisoners into whatever was making that smell in the dark, in case anyone tried to follow in Sarah's wake. Leaving them to sit in it she waited and watched, gun in hand.

* * *

"Bravo Six, repeat," said Morgan, who had seen the spike in his output and heard a noise, rather than anything intelligible. "Bravo Six, do you copy?" He checked the monitors, in case Six' transponder had failed completely. A quick scan of all those monitors showed no one and nothing. Morgan slammed his hand down on the button. Alarms blared, which should get Six' attention if nothing else did. "Gentlemen, we have a failure to report. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill."

Meaning it wasn't one of his drills. It could be one of the boss'. It could also be Six sitting in the can with a faulty transmitter, but Morgan knew which way to bet. "Three, you should be closest, Four, you're next. Converge on the holodeck." Meaning the configurable training module, but 'holodeck' had the rule of cool working in its favor.

As a target, though, it kind of sucked.

Gertrude's voice came on the line as he was shifting the others to new places. _"Bravo_ _Five_ _, report."_

"Possible intruder on the holodeck, ma'am," said Morgan, wishing the circumstances were better for a line like that. From the inside it wasn't nearly as cool. "We have a failure to report." And Six had said 'in' or something close to it.

 _"_ _Six_ _is down and out, control,"_ said Three. _"There's a hole in the wall shaped like his face, opposite stair Two."_

Morgan winced. Still, it could have been worse. 'Down and out' was better than 'down and done'. "You heard?" he asked, listening to One moving people to stair two while he was on the line with the boss.

 _"Yes. Must've used the ducts."_

"Yes, ma'am, Sorry, ma'am," said Morgan, knowing that it was his own fault. "I should have had active scan on in there while testing the new program."

 _"Live and learn, Bravo Five. Find the intruder and keep them alive until I get there."_

"Tasers only, yes ma'am." He heard Bravo One pass it on. "And after that?" Should he activate more corpsmen? Call an ambulance?

 _"We'll see."_

Okay, maybe a hearse.

* * *

 **A/N2** Did anyone pick up on the 'trashy romance novel' line and figure out it was Carina? I wasn't sure if I wanted to try and keep it a secret or not.

Who can name a movie where a whack job villain had a creepy fetish? Anyone?


End file.
